[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
#3745: USNews & World Report FWD - Haitian cocaine connection (fwd)
From:Racine125@aol.com
At http://www.usnews.com/usnews/issue/000529/haiti.htm:
World Report 5/29/00
The cocaine connection
Amid poverty and political disarray, traffickers find Haiti open for business
By Linda Robinson
PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITIâ??On May 7, the chief of Haiti's U.S.-trained antidrug
police force, Armand Jean-Robert, quietly boarded an Air France flight to
Miami. Not for business or vacation. Jean-Robert fled Haiti after getting
word that he was suspected of stealing drug money seized last fall in the
capital's airport and of ripping off another trafficker. U.S. officials are
now questioning him to see where that trail may lead. This much is known:
Jean-Robert was one of a dozen police superintendents being investigated by
the inspector general of Haiti's police. But now the inspector general
himself has been forced out of his jobâ??transferred last week to a diplomatic
post, leaving U.S. officials with precious few allies in the Haitian
government.
It wasn't supposed to work out this way. When 20,000 U.S. troops landed in
Haiti in 1994 to restore deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and kick
out a military junta, the Clinton administration hoped to set this
perennially troubled, deeply impoverished Caribbean nation on the path to
stability. A scary sequel has unfolded instead: Politicians are being
murdered, Haitians are more impoverished than ever, and, most ominous of all,
drug traffickers are taking over the countryâ??with the help of friends in high
places.
Fourteen percent of the cocaine entering the United States last year passed
through Haiti, up from 10 percent in 1998, and U.S. Customs in Miami has
seized nearly 6,000 pounds of cocaine coming from Haiti in the past eight
months. A U.S. News investigation reveals that traffickers and their allies
now operate here with near impunity, intimidating or killing anyone who
stands in their way. "They have very, very high-level contacts," says one
Haitian official. "I feel like I'm the enemy."
Alerted by rumors of an investigation, some of the suspect police
superintendents sought help from a powerful figure in Haiti's ruling party,
Dany Toussaint. According to several U.S. and Haitian officials, Toussaint
used his political connections to secure protection for the police officers
and the ouster of the inspector general. U.S. officials think they know why.
"We suspect that certain individuals associated with Fanmi Lavalas [the
ruling party] are involved with drugs," says a senior Clinton administration
official. "In his [Toussaint's] case, it's more than a rumor." Toussaint
denies allegations that he is involved in drug trafficking.
Burying the truth. Those seen as causing trouble for drug traffickers and
their friends become targets. The secretary of state for public security fled
into exile in Guatemala last October, and his presumed successor was shot
dead the next day. A week later, an assassination attempt was made against
the chief of the judicial police. And Haiti's most prominent radio
journalist, who had denounced Toussaint and "the defamation of honest
officials" in a fiery broadcast, was slain in front of his radio station last
month.
The scope of Haiti's drug corruption is breathtaking. A U.S. official
estimates that 90 percent of the police superintendents are tainted. Another
discouraged official says: "What you have today is total anarchy." Even
though the Haitian antidrug police are periodically polygraphed, the lure of
drug money tempts even top police officers. Four police superintendents were
caught negotiating a cocaine deal in the northern city of Cap Haitien, and
the officer in charge of the capital's airport was dismissed this month for
trying to let 900 pounds of the drug slip out undetected. Officials say
another notorious superintendent in Cap Haitien boasts of the millions he has
made.
One sign of the drug money flowing into Haiti are dozens of posh homes under
construction in a gated enclave called Belvil, where a house worth $2 million
belonging to a trafficker was seized last fall. Inside they found 600 pounds
of cocaine and $40,000 in cash lying out in the open. Farther up in the cool
hills above Port-au-Prince, in an area called Vivi Michel, one of the
ostentatious homes with arched windows and wrought-iron balconies belongs to
Jacques Ketant, who has been indicted in Miami on drug charges. He was
spotted at his discothèque, Jumballa, just down the road late last year. But
reputed traffickers have little to fear since Haiti has no extradition treaty
with the United States.
The wealth spawned by drugs contrasts sharply with the searing poverty in
Haiti, where the per capita income is just $360 a year. Half of all children
under age 5 are malnourished, although U.S. aid programs feed a half-million
children a day. The capital city has no working traffic lights, and main
streets are deeply cratered with potholes. The only thriving businesses
appear to be cellular phone companies, since the state-owned telephone
utility cannot even repair existing lines, and car dealerships doing a brisk
trade in sport utility vehicles. "As the roads get worse, the rich just buy
bigger SUVs," says a Haitian teacher.
Political bickering has paralyzed the government and stalled $600 million in
international aid. Elections for Parliament, which was dissolved 17 months
ago, were finally being held this week. Lavalas leader Aristide is expected
to be re-elected president this fall, partly on the strength of armed thugs
who intimidate his critics.
Booty. Amid the chaos, the drug trade flourishes. Officials say more than
5,000 Colombians have entered Haiti in the past six months to arrange drug
shipments or pick up drug money funneled here from the United States. U.S.
Customs found $1 million packed in red Craftsman toolboxes aboard a freighter
just as it was leaving Miami for Haiti in March, and an additional $4 million
has been seized at the Port-au-Prince airport. One man carried $1 million
stuffed in a carry-on satchel, and $1.6 million more was found divided among
11 passengers headed to Panama, some of it hidden in a child's roll-on
suitcase.
Haiti's location midway between Colombia and the United States makes it an
ideal way station for drugs. "Haiti is the most critical spot in the
Caribbean right now," says Michael Vigil, the U.S. DEA official in charge of
the region. "Colombian traffickers are going in with all they've gotâ??fast
boats, cargo vessels, and twin-engine planes." U.S. radar detects an average
of two drug flights a week into Haiti. The whir of small planes can be heard
after dark around Port-au-Prince, and last December three drug planes crashed
at night while attempting to land on a rocky dirt road just outside the
capital. The maritime traffic is even greater. After 3,000 pounds of cocaine
were found ingeniously secreted in the keels of Haitian freighters docked in
Miami in February, a dozen other freighters either turned around or stayed
put in Haiti.
To make up for Haiti's small, weak police force, the DEA has mounted joint
operations with two dozen Caribbean Basin countries and set up a high-tech
network called UNICORN (Unified Caribbean On-Line Regional Network) that
enables their police to share tips and photos. Despite the daunting odds,
Vigil insists that the only option is to try harder. "If we don't take an
aggressive stand," he says, "Haiti will become a major satellite for
Colombian and Dominican trafficking organizations." If it isn't already.