19264: Slavin: (Kurtzban) H Rebels US Ops (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: PSlavin@unicefusa.org

http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/25/1613200

Haiti's lawyer: US Is Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries, Calls For UN
Peacekeepers

By Amy Goodman and Jeremy Scahill
Democracynow.org

The US lawyer representing the government of Haiti charged today that the
US government is directly involved in a military coup attempt against the
countryís democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Ira
Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney who has served as General Counsel to the
Haitian government since 1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to
overthrow Aristide are being backed by Washington.

"I believe that this is a group that is armed by, trained by, and employed
by the intelligence services of the United States,î Kurzban told the
national radio and TV program Democracy Now!. ìThis is clearly a military
operation, and it's a military coup."


"There's enough indications from our point of view, at least from my point
of view, that the United States certainly knew what was coming about two
weeks before this military operation started," Kurzban said.  The United
States made contingency plans for Guantanamo."


If a direct US connection is proven, it will mark the second time in just
over a decade that Washington has been involved in a coup in Haiti.


Several of the paramilitary leaders now rampaging Haiti are men who were at
the forefront of the US-backed campaign of terror during the 1991-94 coup
against Aristide. Among the paramilitary figures now leading the current
insurrection is Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former number 2 man in the FRAPH
paramilitary death squad.


Chamblain was convicted and sentenced in absentia to hard-labor for life in
trials for the April 23, 1994 massacre in the pro-democracy region of
Raboteau and the September 11, 1993 assassination of democracy-activist
Antoine IzmÈry. Chamblain recently arrived in Gonaives with about 25 other
commandos based in the Dominican Republic, where Chamblain has been living
since 1994. They were well equipped with rifles, camouflage uniforms, and
all-terrain vehicles.


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
bodyguard and a driver on Oct. 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, was the
founder of FRAPH.


An October 1994 article by journalist Allan Nairn in The Nation magazine
quoted Constant as saying that he was contacted by a US Military officer
named Col. Patrick Collins, who served as defense attachÈ at the United
States Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Constant says Collins pressed him to set
up a group to "balance the Aristide movement" and do ìintelligenceî work
against it. Constant admitted that, at the time, he was working with CIA
operatives in Haiti. Constant is now residing freely in the US. He is
reportedly living in Queens, NY. At the time, James Woolsey was head of the
CIA.


Another figure to recently reemerge is Guy Philippe, a former Haitian
police chief who fled Haiti in October 2000 after authorities discovered
him plotting a coup with a group of other police chiefs. All of the men
were trained in Ecuador by US Special Forces during the 1991-1994 coup.
Since that time, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of
master-minding deadly attacks on the 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 the following two years.


Kurzban also points to the presence of another FRAPH veteran, Jean Tatun.
Along with Chamblain, Tatun was convicted of gross violations of human
rights and murder in the Raboteau massacre.


ìThese people came through the Dominican border after the United States had
provided 20,000 M-16's to the Dominican army,î says Kurzban. ìI believe
that the United States clearly knew about it before, and that given the
fact of the history of these people, [Washington is] probably very, very
deeply involved, and I think Congress needs to seriously look at what the
involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence
Agency has been in this operation. Because it is a military operation. It's
not a rag-tag group of liberators, as has often been put in the press in
the last week or two.î


Kurzban says he has hired military analysts to review photos of the weapons
being used by the paramilitary groups. He says that contrary to reports in
the media that the armed groups are using weapons originally distributed by
Aristide, the gangs are using highly sophisticated and powerful weapons;
weapons that far out-gun Aristideís 3,000 member National Police force.


ìI don't think that there's any question about the fact that the weapons
that they have did not come from Haiti,î says Kurzban. ìThey're organized
as a military commando strike force that's going from city to city.î


Kurzban says that among the weapons being used by the paramilitaries are:
M-16's, M-60's, armor piercing weapons and rocket-propelled grenade
launchers. ìThey have weapons to shoot down the one helicopter that the
government has,î he said. ìThey have acted as a pretty tight-knit commando
unit.î


Chamblain and other paramilitary leaders have said they will march on the
capital, Port-au-Prince within two weeks. The US has put forth a proposal,
being referred to as a peace plan, that many viewed as favorable to
Aristideís opponents. Aristide accepted the plan, but the opposition
rejected it. Washingtonís point man on the crisis is Roger Noriega,
Undersecretary of State for Western Hemispheric Affairs.


ìI think Noriega has been an Aristide hater for over a decade,î says
Kurzban, adding that he believes Noriega allowed the opposition to delay
their response to the plan to allow the paramilitaries to capture more
territory. ìMy reaction was they're just giving them more time so they can
take over more, that the military wing of the opposition can take over more
ground in Haiti and create a fate accompli,î Kurzban said. ìIndeed, as soon
as they said, ëwe need an extra day,í I predicted, unfortunately, and
correctly, that they would go into Cap Haitian (Haitiís 2nd largest city)
and indeed the next morning they did.î


The leader of the ìoppositionî is an American citizen named Andy Apaid. He
was born in New York. Haitian law does not allow dual-nationality and he
has not renounced his US citizenship. In a recent statement, Congressmember
Maxine Waters blasted Apaid and his opposition front, saying she believes
ìApaid is attempting to instigate a bloodbath in Haiti and then blame the
government for the resulting disaster in the belief that the United States
will aid the so-called protestors against President Aristide and his
government.î


ìWe have the leader of the opposition, who Mr. Noriega is negotiating with,
who Secretary Powell calls and who tells Secretary Powell, you know, ëwe
need a couple more daysí and Secretary Powell says ëthat's fine,íî says
Kurzban. ìI mean, there's some kind of theater of the absurd going on with
this opposition where it's led by an American citizen, where they're just
clearly stalling for time until they can get more ground covered in Haiti
through their military wing, and the United States and Noriega, with a wink
and nod, is kind of letting them do that.î


Kurzban says that because Aristideís opponents rejected Washingtonís plan,
ìthe next step clearly is to send in some kind of UN peacekeeping force
immediately.î


ìThe question is,î says Kurzban. ìWill the international community stand by
and allow a democracy in this hemisphere to be terminated by a brutal
military coup of persons who have a very, very sordid history of gross
violations of human rights?î


Democracy Now! (www.democracynow.org) is a nationally-syndicated radio and
TV program broadcast on Pacifica Radio, NPR, community TV stations and Free
Speech TV Channel 9415 of the DishNetwork. Mike Burke and Sharif Abdel
Kouddous contributed to this report. mail@democracynow.org.
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