The reappearance of the FRAPH/FAD'H is nothing less than a stinking stain on today's Haiti...
News Source: nosweat.org
Today, 23 February 2004, as Haitians wake up to the news that the northern city of Cap-Haitien has fallen to a rebel force composed of former Haitian Army (FAD'H) soldiers led by FRAPH leader, Louis Jodel Chamblain, we can perhaps continue with this analogy, and say:
"The reappearance of the FRAPH/FAD'H is nothing less than the excrement that's making a stinking stain on the torn trousers that is Haiti today." The Haiti Support Group wholeheartedly endorses Amnesty International's 16 February press release which stated, "The last thing that the country needs is for those who committed abuses in the past to take up leadership positions in the armed opposition."
As a solidarity organisation that believes that internationally-recognised human rights standards can lend valuable protection to individuals and organisations struggling to overthrow tyrannies and dictatorship, we are deeply concerned that the Haitian opposition - grouped in the Democratic Platform - has failed to unequivocally condemn the emergence of notorious human rights abusers at the head of the armed movement to oust President Aristide.
We are also greatly alarmed to see statements in the media which indicate that the rebel force intends to reinstate the disbanded Haitian Army (FAD'H).
Ever since its creation during the US occupation (1915-34), the Haitian Army's primary roles have been to defend the country's tiny and reactionary economic elite and to repress movements for political change. We fully expect a reborn Haitian Army to play exactly the same role.
For this reason, the Haiti Support Group - a solidarity organisation that has supported the Haitian people's struggle for justice, human rights, equitable development and participatory democracy since 1992 - cannot accept that a reborn Haitian Army will serve the best interests of the Haitian majority.
In this context we are obliged to point out that elements within the Democratic Convergence opposition coalition have long intimated their support for the reinstatement of the Haitian Army, and that, more recently, the continued silence on this issue on the part of the Democratic Platform is a strong indication that it is willing to accept a reborn Haitian Army in exchange for the early departure of President Aristide.
As the desperately grim scenario unfolds in Haiti, we are reminded once again of this extract from an article published in The Washington Post newspaper on 2nd February 2001:
- The (Democratic) Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the International Republican Institute, an organisation that promotes democracy that is closely identified with the U.S. Republican Party. It includes former Aristide allies -- people who helped him fight Haiti's dictators, then soured as they watched him at work. But it also includes former backers of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 and terrorised the country for three years. The most determined of these men, with a promise of anonymity, freely express their desire to see the U.S. military intervene once again, this time to get rid of Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian army. "That would be the cleanest solution," said one opposition party leader. Failing that, they say, the CIA should train and equip Haitian officers exiled in the neighboring Dominican Republic so they could stage a comeback themselves."
Background on rebel leaders whose forces are now in control of over half of Haiti:
Louis Jodel Chamblain
Chamblain was joint leader - along with CIA operative Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant - of the Front r?volutionnaire pour l'avancement et le progr?s ha?tien, (Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress) known by its acronym - FRAPH - which phonetically resembles the French and Creole words for 'to beat' or 'to thrash'. FRAPH was formed by the military authorities who were the de facto leaders of the country during the 1991-94 military regime, and was responsible for numerous human rights violations before the 1994 restoration of democratic governance.
Among the victims of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership was Haitian Justice Minister Guy Malary. He was ambushed and machine-gunned to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993. According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights:
"FRAPH members Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to discuss plans to kill Malary." (Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the leader of FRAPH, is now living freely in Queens, NYC.)
In September 1995, Chamblain was among seven senior military and FRAPH leaders convicted in absentia and sentenced to forced labour for life for involvement in the September 1993 extrajudicial execution of Antoine Izm?ry, a well-known pro-democracy activist. In late 1994 or early 1995, it is understood that Chamblain went into exile to the Dominican Republic in order to avoid prosecution.
Guy Philippe
Guy Philippe is a former member of the FAD'H (Haitian Army). During the 1991-94 military regime, he and a number of other officers received training from the US Special Forces in Equador, and when the FAD'H was dissolved by Aristide in early 1995, Philippe was incorporated into the new National Police Force.
He served as police chief in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Delmas and in the second city, Cap-Haitien, before he fled Haiti in October 2000 when Haitian authorities discovered him plotting what they described as a coup, together with a clique of other police chiefs. Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of master-minding deadly attacks on the Haitian Police Academy and the National Palace in July and December 2001, as well as hit-and-run raids against police stations on Haiti's Central Plateau over last two years.
Ernst Ravix
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights report on Haiti, dated 7 September 1988, FAD'H Captain Ernst Ravix, was the military commander of Saint Marc, and head of a paramilitary squad of "sub-proletariat youths" who called themselves the Sans Manman (Motherless Ones). In May 1988, the government of President Manigat tried to reduce contraband and corruption in the port city of Saint Marc, but Ravix, the local Army commander, responded by organising a demonstration against the President in which some three thousand residents marched, chanted, and burned barricades. Manigat removed Ravix from his post, but after Manigat's ouster, he was reinstated by the military dictator, Lt. Gen. Namphy.
Ravix was not heard of again until December 2001 when former FAD'H sergeant, Pierre Richardson, the person captured following the 17 December attack on the National Palace, reportedly confessed that the attack was a coup attempt planned in the Dominican Republic by three former police chiefs- Guy Philippe, Jean-Jacques Nau and Gilbert Dragon - and that it was led by former Captain Ernst Ravix. According to Richardson, Ravix's group withdrew from the National Palace and fled to the Dominican Republic when reinforcements failed to arrive.
Jean Tatoune
Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune", first came to prominence as a leader of the anti-Duvalier mobilisations in his home town of Gonaives in 1985.
For some years he was known and respected for his anti-Duvalierist activities but during the 1991-94 military regime he emerged as a local leader of FRAPH.
On 22 April 1994, he led a force of dozens of soldiers and FRAPH members of the CIA-linked death squad FRAPH to attack Raboteau, a desperately poor slum area in Gonaives and a stronghold of support for Aristide. Between 15 and 25 people were killed in what became known as the Raboteau massacre.
In 2000, Tatoune was put on trial and sentenced to forced labour for life for his participation in the Raboteau massacre. He was subsequently imprisoned in Gonaives, from where he escaped in August 2002, and took up arms again in his base in a poor area of the city. At various times he has spoken out against the government, and at other times in favour of it, but since September 2003 he has allied himself with the followers of murdered community leader, Amiot Metayer, and vowed to overthrow the government by force.
Jean-Baptiste Joseph
Joseph is a former Haitian Army sergeant who, following the disbanding of the FAD'H in 1995, headed an association of former FAD'H members. The formation of the Rassemblement des Militaires R?voqu?s Sans Motifs (RAMIRESM), the Assembly of Soldiers Retired Without Cause was announced at a 1 August 1995 press conference in Port-au-Prince. During 1995 and 1996, RAMIRESM was closely associated with Hubert De Ronceray's neo-Duvalierist party, Mobilisation pour le d?veloppement national, (MDN) Mobilisation for National Development.
On 17 August 1996, Joseph was one of 15 former soldiers arrested at the MDN party headquarters and accused of plotting against the government. Two days later, approximately twenty armed men, reportedly in uniforms and thought to be former soldiers, fired on the main Port-au-Prince police station, killing one bystander.
Since then nothing had been heard of Joseph, until he emerged in Hinche with the rebel forces last week. The right-wing MDN party is a leading member of the Democratic Convergence coalition.
