19664: radtimes: Drug allegation gave US leverage on Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Drug allegation gave US leverage on Aristide

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2004/03/01/drug_allegation_gave_us_leverage_on_aristide/

By Steven Dudley, Globe Correspondent, 3/1/2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- An accusation in a Miami courtroom last week that
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was personally involved in
drug-trafficking apparently gave the United States more leverage to
persuade Aristide to leave the country, diplomats in Haiti said yesterday.

The allegation was made Wednesday by Haitian Beaudoin "Jacques" Ketant, a
convicted drug-trafficker and a former Aristide confidant, as he was
sentenced to a 27-year prison term in federal court in Florida.

Aristide's lawyer angrily denied the allegation, saying Ketant was trying
to save himself by making unfounded accusations against Aristide. And the
United States has not accused Aristide of involvement in trafficking.

But US officials have been adamant over the last year that Haiti has become
an increasingly important transshipment point for cocaine and other illicit
drugs into the United States.

The most serious charges of drug-trafficking in Haiti have been leveled not
at Aristide but at some of the leaders of the insurgency that had battled
to unseat him in a revolt that began Feb. 5 in northern Haiti. Many
analysts and diplomats remain nervous of a future Haiti government that
includes these powerful rebels, many of them associated with previous,
brutal Haitian regimes.

The Florida case highlighted the growth of the drug-trafficking network
there. Ketant told the court: "He [Aristide] controlled the drug trade in
Haiti. He turned the country into a narco-country. It's a one-man show. You
either pay [Aristide] or you die."

Three diplomats based in Haiti who were familiar with the negotiations that
led Aristide to leave the country at dawn yesterday said on condition of
anonymity that they understood Washington had used Ketant's public words
and private cooperation with US prosecutors to add to the pressure on Aristide.

"You have to look at the declarations of Ketant to understand a lot of
things, to explain a lot of things," a high-level European diplomat said of
the deterioration in support for Aristide. "It was a way to help the
negotiation [along]."

Support in the international community for Aristide eroded over the past
week, as violence worsened throughout the country, some of it at the hands
of Aristide's supporters. "One could make the hypothesis," said another
senior diplomat, that Ketant's declarations "gave the US more leverage that
it was in [Aristide's] best interest to leave."

Ketant had a longstanding relationship with Aristide. He is the godfather
of one of Aristide's daughters. "He really trusted Aristide," one diplomat
said of Ketant. "They were close. They were collaborators."

Prosecutors said Ketant used his contacts in the government to establish a
cocaine pipeline to the United States. He worked primarily with remnants of
Colombia's Medellin cartel, as well as the Norte de Valle cartel, who
shipped the drugs to Haiti.

 From there, Ketant's smugglers carried the cocaine to different places in
the United States in boats, luggage, and their own stomachs. In the
process, Ketant amassed a fortune and bought several houses, boats, and art
worth millions of dollars.

But relations between the drug dealer and the president soured last year,
for reasons that are not entirely clear. Haitian police shot and killed
Ketant's brother in February. And in May, Ketant's men stormed a private
school attended by many children of US Embassy officials. That embarrassing
transgression led Aristide to call a meeting with Ketant in June during
which, Ketant said, Aristide turned him over to US authorities.

Once in Miami, Ketant began cooperating with the Drug Enforcement
Administration.

The US attorney's office in Miami was not available for comment on a
possible indictment. Until yesterday, Aristide had immunity as a head of state.

During his 25-minute diatribe in Miami against the former Haitian
president, Ketant said Aristide was a "drug lord" who controlled most of
the drug trade passing through Haiti. "He betrayed me just like Judas
betrayed Jesus," Ketant told the Miami judge at his sentencing.

The United States has not formally accused Aristide of involvement in drug
trafficking. But US officials have protested for months about lack of
cooperation from Aristide's government.

"We really have no reliable interlocutor in the Haitian law enforcement
that we can work with to attack the problem," Paul Simons, a State
Department narcotics officer, said in a briefing last year. "The government
of Haiti has done very little to cooperate with the United States to
interdict the flow of drugs or honor its international narcotics
commitments. The police in Haiti continue to be highly politicized."

American officials say Haiti's role as a major transshipment route for
cocaine and other drugs into the United States has grown significantly in
the decade since Aristide was restored to office in 1994 after a US
military invasion. A senior US defense official said last week that in
1994, Haiti was not nearly as important a trafficking route as it is now.

Last year, the United States suspended visas of at least five top
government officials, including the minister of the interior. The State
Department has "decertified" Haiti two years in a row as a cooperative
partner in the war on drugs, although President Bush signed a waiver on
both occasions.

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