(I have posted two articles. The first article from 2011 is by Kim Ives and Ansel Herz. It describes the coup against President Aristide in 2004 and the attempts to keep him in South Africa. The second article is by ex-Ambassador James Foley in December 2022, who clearly states that Aristide asked for help in 2004 as rebel soldiers marched close to Port au Prince, with the implication that Aristide was not kidnapped but was spirited away from Haiti by the US to save his life. jc)
WikiLeaks Haiti: The Aristide Files
Secret US Embassy cables depict a far-reaching campaign to prevent Haiti’s democratically elected leader from returning to the country after the 2004 coup.
By Kim Ives and Ansel Herz
AUGUST 5, 2011
US officials led a far-reaching international campaign aimed at keeping former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide exiled in South Africa, rendering him a virtual prisoner there for the last seven years, according to secret US State Department cables.
The cables show that high-level US and UN officials even discussed a politically motivated prosecution of Aristide to prevent him from “gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”
The secret cables, made available to the Haitian weekly newspaper Haïti Liberté by WikiLeaks, show how the political defeat of Aristide and his Lavalas movement has been the central pillar of US policy toward the Caribbean nation over the last two US administrations, even though—or perhaps because—US officials understood that he was the most popular political figure in Haiti.
They also reveal how US officials and their diplomatic counterparts from France, Canada, the UN and the Vatican tried to vilify and ostracize the Haitian political leader.
For the Vatican, Aristide was an “active proponent of voodoo.” For Washington, he was “dangerous to Haiti’s democratic consolidation,” according to the secret US cables.
Aristide was overthrown in a bloody February 2004 coup supported by Washington and fomented by right-wing paramilitary forces and the Haitian elite. In the aftermath of the coup, more than 3,000 people were killed and thousands of supporters of Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas political party were jailed.
The United States maintained publicly that Aristide resigned in the face of a ragtag force of former Haitian army soldiers rampaging in Haiti’s north. But Aristide called his escort by a US Navy SEAL team on his flight into exile “a modern-day kidnapping.”
Two months later, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was established, a 9,000-strong UN occupation force that still oversees Latin America’s first independent nation.
Aristide has spoken forcefully against the UN occupation, particularly in his 2010 year-end letter to the Haitian people. “We cannot forget the $5 billion which has already been spent for MINUSTAH over these past six years,” he wrote. “Anybody can see how many houses, hospitals, and schools that wasted money could have built for the victims” of the January 12, 2010, earthquake that destroyed much of Port-au-Prince and surrounding regions.
Such positions are major reasons Washington fought to get and keep Aristide out of Haiti, the cables make clear. “A premature departure of MINUSTAH would leave the [Haitian] government…vulnerable to…resurgent populist and anti-market economy political forces—reversing gains of the last two years,” wrote US Ambassador Janet Sanderson in an October 1, 2008, cable. MINUSTAH “is an indispensable tool in realizing core USG [US government] policy interests in Haiti.”
At a high-level meeting five years ago, top US and UN officials discussed how the “Aristide Movement Must Be Stopped,” according to an August 2, 2006, cable. It described how former Guatemalan diplomat Edmond Mulet, then chief of MINUSTAH, “urged US legal action against Aristide to prevent the former president from gaining more traction with the Haitian population and returning to Haiti.”
At Mulet’s request, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki “to ensure that Aristide remained in South Africa.”
President Obama and Kofi Annan’s successor, Ban Ki-moon, also intervened to urge Pretoria to keep Aristide in South Africa. The secret cables report that Aristide’s return to Haiti would be a “disaster,” according to the Vatican, and “catastrophic,” according to the French.
But the regional and Haitian view was quite different. US Ambassador James Foley admitted in a confidential March 22, 2005, cable that an August 2004 poll “showed that Aristide was still the only figure in Haiti with a favorability rating above 50%.”
The Bahamian Foreign Minister Fred Mitchell, apparently referring to Haiti’s revolutionary leader Toussaint Louverture’s kidnapping and imprisonment in the Jura mountains in 1802, warned “that a perceived ‘Banishing Policy’ has racial and historical overtones in the Caribbean that reminds inhabitants of the region of slavery and past abuse.”
Keeping the Pressure On
After Aristide left Jamaica for exile in South Africa on May 30, 2004, the US government worked overtime to keep him out of Haiti and even the hemisphere, even though the Haitian constitution and international law stipulate that every Haitian citizen has the right to be in his homeland.
When Dominican President Leonel Fernández suggested at a hemispheric conference eight months after the coup that Aristide should return and play a role in Haiti’s political future, the United States reacted angrily, saying in a cable that Fernández had been “wrong in advocating the inclusion in the process of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide.”
The US Ambassador to the Dominican Republic “admonished” Fernández “during a pull-aside at a social event.”
“Aristide had led a violent gang involved in narcotics trafficking and had squandered any credibility he formerly may have had,” US Ambassador Hertell told him, according to a November 16, 2004, cable.
“Nobody has given me any information about that,” Fernández replied.
The embassy followed up with a series of aggressive meetings insisting that the Dominican government renounce its support for Aristide. The meetings included a sit-down with the Dominican president specifically on the subject of Haiti with the British, Canadian, French, Spanish and US ambassadors.
No charges were ever filed against Aristide for drug trafficking, although the United States “spent, literally, tens of millions of taxpayer dollars…trying to pin something, anything on President Aristide,” Ira Kurzban, Aristide’s lawyer, told Pacifica Radio’s Flashpoints in July. “They’ve had an ATF investigation, a tax investigation, a drug investigation, and now apparently some kind of corruption investigation…. The reality is they’ve come up with nothing because there is nothing.”
According to a report in Haïti Liberté, other sources say that a US legal team is still angling to prosecute Aristide.
In 2005, the Fanmi Lavalas political party planned large demonstrations to mark Aristide’s July 15 birthday and call for his return. The US Ambassador to France, Craig Stapleton, met with the French diplomatic official Gilles Bienvenu in Paris to discuss the issue.
“Bienvenu stated that the GOF [Government of France] shared our analysis of the implications of an Aristide return to Haiti, terming the likely repercussions ‘catastrophic,’ ” Stapleton wrote in a July 1, 2005, cable. “Initially expressing caution when asked about France demarching the SARG [conveying the message to the South African government], Bienvenu noted that Aristide was not a prisoner in South Africa and that such an action could ‘create difficulties.’ ”
Stapleton swiftly overcame Bienvenu’s reluctance. Bienvenu agreed to relay US and French “shared concerns” to the South African government, saying that “as a country desiring to secure a seat on the UN Security Council, South Africa could not afford to be involved in any way with the destabilization of another country.”
The Ambassador went even further: “Bienvenu speculated on exactly how Aristide might return, seeing a possible opportunity to hinder him in the logistics of reaching Haiti,” Stapleton wrote. “If Aristide traveled commercially, Bienvenu reasoned, he would likely need to transit certain countries in order to reach Haiti. Bienvenu suggested a demarche to Caricom [Caribbean Community] countries by the US and EU to warn them against facilitating any travel or other plans Aristide might have. He specifically recommended speaking to the Dominican Republic, which could be directly implicated in a return attempt.”
Five days later in Ottawa, two Canadian diplomatic officials met with the US Embassy personnel. “‘We are on the same sheet’ with regards to Aristide,” one Canadian affirmed, according to a July 6, 2005, cable. “Even before these recent rumors, she said, Canada had a clear position in opposition to the return of Aristide.”
Canada shared the message with “all parties…especially the Caricom countries,” as well with South Africa.
Vatican Blocks Post-Quake Return of Aristide
The earthquake that killed tens of thousands and destroyed many parts of the city also threatened to upend the established political order, worrying diplomats.
US Embassy’s Deputy Chief of Mission (DCM) met with a Vatican official in the days after the earthquake to discuss Church losses and responses.
A January 20, 2010, cable reports, “In discussions with DCM over the past few days, senior Vatican officials said they were dismayed about media reports that deposed Haitian leader—and former priest—Jean Bertrand Aristide wished to return to Haiti…. The Vatican’s Assesor (deputy chief of staff equivalent), Msgr. Peter Wells, said Aristide’s presence would distract from the relief efforts and could become destabilizing.”
Then the Vatican’s Undersecretary for Relations with States, Msgr. Ettore Balestrero, conferred with Archbishop Bernardito Auza in Haiti, who “agreed emphatically that Aristide’s return would be a disaster.” Balestrero “then conveyed Auza’s views to Archbishop Greene in South Africa, and asked him also to look for ways to get this message convincingly to Aristide. DCM suggested that Greene also convey this message to the SAG [South African government].”
The Vatican’s position on Aristide’s return was augured in earlier cables. In November 2003, three months before the bloody February 2004 coup against Aristide, a US political officer met with the Vatican’s MFA Caribbean Affairs Office Director Giorgio Lingua. He said that “effecting change in Haiti should be easier than in Cuba,” reported US Chargé d’Affaires Brent Hardt in a November 14, 2003, cable. “Unlike Castro, Lingua observed, Aristide is not ideologically motivated. ‘This is one person—not a system,’ he added.”
Shortly after the coup, on March 5, 2004, US Ambassador to the Vatican James Nicholson wrote a cable reporting that the Holy See’s Deputy Foreign Minister had “no regret at Aristide’s departure, noting that the former priest had been an active proponent of voodoo.”
A Hero’s Welcome
Aristide ultimately returned to Haiti on March 18, 2011, despite personal calls by President Obama and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma to stop him. They argued he would disrupt Haiti’s imminent elections.
“The problem is exclusion, and the solution is inclusion,” Aristide said during a brief return speech at the airport after landing. Then he made his only reference, however oblique, to that week’s elections from which his party was barred: “The exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas is the exclusion of the majority.”
Two days later, the second round of Haiti’s elections went off relatively smoothly, but with historically low voter participation. Some polling stations in Port-au-Prince were empty, with stacks of ballot sheets piled high, hours before they closed. Less than 24 percent of registered voters went to their polls, according to official statistics. Other observers say the turnout was much less.
On the morning of Aristide’s return in Port-au-Prince, thousands massed outside the airport in an exuberant, spontaneous demonstration. They jogged alongside his motorcade waving Haitian flags and placards bearing Aristide’s visage, then scaled the fence surrounding Aristide’s home and poured into its yard until there was no room left to move. The crowd even climbed the walls and covered the roof.
Sitting in an SUV just twenty feet from the door to his hastily repaired but mostly empty house, Aristide and his family waited until a crew of Haitian policeman managed to clear what resembled a pathway through the crowd. First his wife and two daughters emerged from the car and dashed inside the home.
Finally Aristide, diminutive in a sharp blue suit, stood up in the car doorway and waved. The crowd roared in excitement and surged around him. The path to the door vanished. His security grabbed him and shouldered their way through the sea of humanity until they got him to the house’s door, through which he popped like a cork, clutching his glasses in his hands.
After a coup, kidnapping, exile, diplomatic intrigue and his rapturous welcome, Aristide was finally home.
Kim Ives Kim Ives is an editor with Haïti Liberté.
Ansel Herz ANSEL HERZ IS A FREELANCE MULTIMEDIA JOURNALIST BASED IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI. HIS WORK HAS BEEN PUBLISHED BY HAITI LIBERTÉ, REUTERS ALERTNET, INTER-PRESS SERVICE AND FREE SPEECH RADIO NEWS (FSRN).
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Opinion | I’ve Seen Military Intervention in Haiti Up Close. We Can’t Repeat the Same Mistakes.
As Biden seeks to assemble an international intervention, learning from the past is key.
Demonstrators fill the streets during a protest to reject an international military force requested by the government and to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Oct. 17, 2022. | Odelyn Joseph/AP Photo
POLITICO
Opinion by JAMES B. FOLEY
12/01/2022
James B. Foley is a former career Foreign Service Officer who served as U.S. Ambassador to Haiti and Croatia.
Haiti is falling apart. The people of Haiti are living under a reign of terror imposed by armed gangs who have a stranglehold over the economy. The country is stalked by disease and the prospect of widespread starvation. With the Haitian state almost completely incapacitated, a growing number of desperate Haitians are trying to reach the United States and there is potential for a mass exodus by sea in the direction of Florida. In response, the Biden administration is stepping up interdiction efforts by the Coast Guard while also moving to try to put together an international force to intervene in Haiti at the request of the country’s embattled interim prime minister.
Prospects for an international rescue mission, however, currently appear dim. There is serious opposition to international intervention within Haiti, and U.S. unwillingness to participate in the force risks its viability. Although becoming more urgently needed by the day, an intervention could be stillborn unless the administration revises its current approach in several key areas. Otherwise, the deteriorating situation could confront Washington with even worse choices and the likelihood of having to shoulder the burden alone.
We’ve been here before.
I was ambassador to Haiti in 2004 when the most recent U.S. military intervention took place, and many parallels to today’s situation exist. Then, as now, there was a crisis of legitimacy, political gridlock and rampant lawlessness veering toward a collapse in state authority and generalized chaos. How the U.S. responded to that earlier crisis is a cautionary tale with lessons that could inform a more successful approach today.
It is commonplace to blame the international community for its serial failures in Haiti, and external powers indeed bear heavy responsibility for the country’s misfortunes in centuries past. But in contemporary Haiti, the United States — in choosing from a menu of unpalatable options — has often blundered in ways that were manipulated by Haiti’s competing factions and personalities to advance their own interests and purposes.
The root of the country’s failed governance, in fact, lies in a never-ending struggle for power and the chronic inability of Haiti’s contesting parties to compromise or achieve consensus on political legitimacy. There is no hope for moving beyond Haiti’s now endemic condition of state failure and incipient anarchy unless Haitians come together and finally seize control of their own destiny. The purpose of any international effort must be to avoid even the perception of alignment with one side or another and to facilitate consensus around Haitians’ assumption of responsibility in both political and security domains. The last foreign intervention fell short in this critical respect and thus accomplished little in terms of helping Haiti build a functioning state under democratic governance.
Unless we learn from that experience, Haiti will only continue on its path to complete disintegration.
At the time, Haiti was led by a former priest, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was locked in a power struggle with opposition forces challenging his legitimacy in the wake of flawed elections. The United States recognized Aristide as president but was troubled by his employment of criminal gangs to inflict violence on opponents. I led months of fruitless negotiations on needed security and political reforms and potential power-sharing arrangements in which all sides proved unyielding. Then in February 2004, a notorious band of former Haitian military officers from the Dominican Republic linked up with a formerly pro-Aristide criminal gang and proceeded to overpower Haitian police and state authorities throughout the country.
![Demonstrators protest in the streets and hold up signs. Demonstrators protest in the streets and hold up signs.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F6a61fe7a-dd93-409f-9c5f-2248a1523652_630x420.jpeg)
As the rebels neared Port-au-Prince, Aristide turned to his weapon of last resort, urging Haitians to flee to the United States while also unleashing street gangs to create anarchy in the capital. This was a naked power move intended to compel the United States to intervene to restore order in Haiti, which would have enabled Aristide to cling to power. President George W. Bush, facing reelection later in 2004 and with his prospects of winning Florida in the balance, refused to be manipulated. The White House ordered the U.S. Coast Guard to intercept Haitian migrants at sea and forcibly return them to Port-au-Prince while instructing the Pentagon to prepare forces for a temporary stabilization mission in Haiti.
By this point, there was little appetite in Washington for propping up Aristide with U.S. military forces, but none whatsoever to support lawless rebels deemed beyond the pale. Ultimately Aristide lost his nerve and requested that the United States extract him from Haiti — a rescue that he later called a kidnapping. The first elements of a stabilization force led by U.S. Marines arrived in time to prevent a bloodbath and thwart a rebel takeover. The chief justice of the Supreme Court took office as Aristide’s lawful successor under the Haitian Constitution and appointed an interim prime minister and government, chosen in a Haitian-led consultative process, to run the country until elections two years later.
However, the unelected interim government that ruled from 2004 until 2006 proved weak and undermined what little legitimacy it possessed by persecuting members of Aristide’s political party. Any hope that the government might benefit from a truce in Haiti’s chronic political strife and address the country’s massive economic, social and environmental problems was dashed by persistent violence fueled by both pro-Aristide gangs and disaffected ex-military rebels. And that was despite the presence of a long-term United Nations peacekeeping force.
Circumstances on the ground today certainly do not bode well for a new international mission. There appears to be little support for foreign intervention among the general population, despite the growing misery. Deeply patriotic, Haitians revile the prospect of yet another foreign occupation following a string of failures by the international community in their country. Moreover, the current U.S.-led initiative has been denounced by the coalition of civil society groups that came together in 2021 under the Montana Accord to agree on a consensus plan to establish a transitional government within Haiti’s constitutional framework.
The Montana group, representing an impressively broad spectrum of Haiti’s civil society, does not accept the legitimacy of current interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was essentially anointed by foreign powers led by the United States in the wake of the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse in July 2021. Henry is perceived as representing continuity with the PHTK party associated with former President Michel Martelly that has held the reins of power for the past decade and is blamed by many for massive corruption and the decay of political institutions and empowerment of criminal gangs. Henry’s opponents even go so far as to assert that current gang violence is being orchestrated to trigger an international intervention that would leave Henry in place and enable his political associates to control the outcome of elections when they are eventually held. Washington therefore needs to take into account how an international intervention will inescapably affect the internal balance of power among competing factions in Haiti.
![Ariel Henry is seen leaving an event. Ariel Henry is seen leaving an event.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F50d28723-055f-4aad-b1ec-9444e27f3a49_630x420.jpeg)
Indeed, the experiences of 2004 provide two key lessons for today.
First, any international intervention must be in support of a political framework that enjoys a meaningful degree of legitimacy and popular backing. Second, foreign military personnel are not a panacea to resolve Haiti’s security challenges.
On the security front, it’s important to grasp the fact that even a formidable contingent of 2,000 U.S. Marines, which led the initial stabilization force in 2004, did not seek to subdue or disarm the lawless street gangs in Port-au-Prince, who wisely chose to lay low until the Marines departed. Those forces had been diverted from deployment to Iraq and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld wanted them out of Haiti almost from the moment they arrived. The bottom line is that there was no political will in Washington — or in the capitals of troop contributing nations to the follow-on U.N. force — for anything resembling a peace enforcement mission, much less combat operations in Haiti.
What was true then is doubly so today. For one thing, the security challenge in Haiti is far greater than it was two decades ago with now heavily armed criminal gangs wielding unprecedented power vis a vis a shrunken state and overmatched police force. Additionally, the U.S. military simply cannot afford a major deployment to Haiti while facing a Russian war of aggression in Europe and a growing risk of conflict with China in the Indo-Pacific. And no other country besides the U.S. is likely to have the political will or the capacity to take on the gangs directly. Reports that Washington is having difficulty recruiting a partner country to assume leadership of an intervention force are thus not surprising, particularly if the Biden administration is telling allies it won’t join them with U.S. troops.
Clearly, a foreign occupation force in Haiti would be unworkable and unwelcome. Instead, the mission of an international security deployment should be to reinforce the capabilities of the Haitian National Police — and publicly described as such to be palatable to the Haitian population. In the short run, this means providing the HNP with the equipment, firepower, intelligence and technical advice needed to overpower the gangs currently holding the country and its economy hostage. It also means putting in place a robust vetting process to root out bad cops, and recruit Haitians committed to upholding the rule of law. In the longer run, it will mean greatly expanding the HNP — currently numbering a paltry 12,000 or so — to a level commensurate with the protection needs of a population of almost 12 million people. (The New York City police force, for instance, numbers about 35,000 for a population of about 8.5 million.)
The United States in particular should spare no cost in helping Haiti to build a robust security force capable of quelling lawlessness; indeed, this ought to be a U.S. national security priority for years to come. There is simply no possibility that Haiti can establish the rule of law and achieve economic progress without a modicum of stability and safety for its people. And without the prospect of relief from misery, the risk of mass migration to the United States will only grow. Twenty years ago, my embassy’s assessment was that up to 90 percent of the population (then estimated to be around 8 million) would immigrate to the U.S. if given the opportunity. Their lot today is immeasurably worse, their numbers significantly greater. The implications speak for themselves.
On the political side, the international community should seek to empower Haitians to take responsibility for the country’s future.
In that regard, the Montana Accord represents a singular hope for progress. Its disparate members have already achieved that rarest of outcomes in Haiti — consensus — on a plan to revive the country’s defunct executive, legislative and judicial institutions and govern with constitutional legitimacy until elections can be safely and credibly mounted. However, the group has experienced its own divisions recently and seems unable to articulate how its vision can be implemented in the face of the brutal gang violence that has brought Haiti to the point of anarchy. In what may be a form of magical thinking, Montana leaders profess that a new government formed under their blueprint will enjoy an aura of unique legitimacy that will somehow overawe the criminal gangs and their financiers. This ignores both the firepower of the gangs and the degree to which they may now operate autonomously, a power unto themselves.
To have any chance of success going forward, the international community must insist on formation of a consensus-backed government to guide Haiti through a necessary transition to democratic elections — one that is at least based upon the concept behind the Montana Accord, if not centered upon the group itself. This means that Henry, who officially petitioned the U.N. to deploy an international force, must be prepared to cede power to a transitional government.
Currently, the prospect of foreign intervention and continued international backing seems to have reinforced his apparent conviction that he need not seriously negotiate with his opponents. The reality is that Henry is an isolated, discredited and failed leader of a failing state; the unstinting support he enjoys from the U.S. is as baffling as it is counterproductive. The U.S. would do well to follow the example of Canada, which has just imposed sanctions on Henry’s presumed political patron, Martelly, the former president — a symbolic but powerful message.
Ultimately, the United States has a narrow path to avoid deployment of a large-scale military force that Washington can ill afford. It requires an all-out diplomatic effort by the administration and comprises three interlocking elements. First, agreement among Haitians to forge a transitional government on the basis of the Montana Accord. Second, agreement by the prospective new government to support an international security mission to assist the Haitian National Police. Third, U.S. participation in the international force, without which it will lack credibility — and without which U.S. efforts to secure a political agreement will have little chance of success. In short, all parties — Henry, the opposition and the U.S. itself — will need to move off of their current positions in one respect or another.
With state collapse looming, the fundamental question is whether Haitian leaders can overcome personal ambition, bitter rivalry and mutual suspicion to find common ground on a way forward for their country. If they do, the international community can play a constructive role in support of their efforts, especially in the vital security domain. The people of Haiti cannot wait much longer. If the situation deteriorates further, it is unthinkable that the United States could remain aloof while potentially millions faced death only 800 miles from our shores. Washington would have no choice but to intervene once again in a big way militarily — saving lives but doing nothing to help break the cycle of dysfunction and despair.
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John A. Carroll, MD
www.haitianhearts.org