19740: Esser: US officials, specialists link some in insurgency to trafficking (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com
DRUGS

US officials, specialists link some in insurgency to trafficking

By Steven Dudley and Farah Stockman, Globe Correspondent And Globe
Staff, 3/3/2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Some of the rebel leaders who helped drive
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power have been implicated in
Haiti's worsening illegal drug trafficking, according to diplomats
based in Haiti and narcotics analysts.

In Haiti, several former policemen who form part of the Liberation
Front, the rebel group that swept through the country in the last
month, have been cited in Haitian government and diplomatic documents
for their involvement in drug trafficking. And former military
personnel connected to the insurgency have historical connections to
a paramilitary organization with a long history in the drug trade.

"Some [of the rebels] are involved in drug trafficking," a senior
Western diplomat said recently. He refused to elaborate, except to
say that "criminal elements" are enmeshed in the month-old insurgency
movement.

A new US State Department report released on Monday cited "serious
allegations" that senior officials of Aristide's government had been
involved in trafficking. In federal court in Miami last week, a
convicted Haitian drug trafficker accused Aristide of personal
involvement in the drug trade, a charge Aristide's lawyer denied.

But as he issued the new report, Assistant Secretary of State Robert
Charles said the transshipment of illegal drugs from Haiti into the
United States would not end with Aristide's departure on Sunday. And
before Aristide was flown into exile, other US officials and academic
specialists on drug trafficking also had raised concerns about some
of the insurgent leaders who were working for Aristide's downfall.

According to internal documents of an international organization that
monitors governmental institutions in Haiti, Guy Philippe, the
Liberation Front's nominal leader, and Gilbert Dragon, its second in
command, were allegedly involved in drug trafficking and taking
bribes while they served as members of the Haitian police in the late
1990s. The documents were shown to the Globe by a diplomat in Haiti
who asked not to be named.

Philippe and Dragon formed part of the "Latinos," a group of 10
Haitians who trained together as army officers in Ecuador before they
all joined the country's newly formed police force in 1995. The
documents said the men moved up quickly through the ranks and began
collecting bribes linked to the drugs that easily pass through this
nation of 8 million people. According to the documents, the Latinos
routinely gave gifts to politicians and once squeezed the government
into exiling its inspector general after the men were linked to 750
kilograms of cocaine seized in Haiti.

Philippe, who trained with the US Secret Service in 1995, fled Haiti
in 2000 after he and the "Latinos" were tied to a coup plot. He
denied that he or the insurgent group he is currently running have
anything to do with drugs. "I'm an open book," he declared earlier
this week from the plush hotel in the northern port city of
Cap-Haitien that the rebels were using as headquarters.

Time magazine reported in its current edition that when Philippe
served as Cap-Haitien's police chief in the late 1990s, "Colombian
cocaine shipments flowed virtually unobstructed through its port,
according to Haitian and US officials -- one reason that Haiti is now
the largest narcotics transshipment center in the Caribbean."

The rebels' strongman, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, was second-in-command
of FRAPH, a paramilitary group that terrorized Aristide supporters in
the early 1990s after the military overthrew Aristide's first
administration in 1991. Chamblain was charged in the massacre of 25
people in the seaside slum of Raboteau in 1994; he fled to the
Dominican Republican to avoid trial, but was convicted in absentia.

According to Brian E. Concannon Jr., a lawyer who represented the
massacre victims, the powerhouse behind FRAPH was Michel "Sweet
Mickey" Francois, the former Port-au-Prince police chief who is
widely believed to have orchestrated the 1991 coup against Aristide.

Although Francois had no formal title in the organization, "He's
generally considered to be the person who is the muscle behind
FRAPH," Concannon said.

Francois was indicted in federal court in Miami in 1997 and charged
with setting up a cocaine-smuggling pipeline that moved millions of
dollars of the drug from Medellin, Colombia, through Haiti to Miami.
"My recollection was that he was the main guy in the whole deal,"
said attorney Irwin Lichter, who represented a codefendant. "He was
the man."

Francois was arrested in Honduras on the charges, but the court
refused the US extradition request and released him, citing lack of
evidence, said Frank Rubino, the Miami-based attorney who represented
Francois in the Honduran court.

"The government didn't put forth sufficient information," Rubino said.

Chamblain himself has not publicly been linked with trafficking.

The US federal indictment of Francois said that while he was police
chief in the early 1990s, he had operated a private airstrip for drug
trafficking. People in Port-au-Prince say the same airstrip, which is
actually an old highway, is still in use.

Haiti's fragile government and position as the poorest country in the
hemisphere make it an ideal place for drug traffickers to work, said
Bruce Bagley, a political science professor at the University of
Miami who has written extensively on the drug trade.

"It's a country that's never been able to construct an effective
state," Bagley said. "The Haitian state doesn't operate, and the
authorities are very bribable."

Bagley said drugs are largely to blame for Haiti's current turmoil.
He calls the rebels' push for power a "narco-coup."

"The reality is that the state is weak; it has no money," he said.
Whoever winds up in power, he added, will have to face the same
powerful drug traffickers.

Haiti doesn't produce drugs like Afghanistan and Colombia. It's more
of a transit stop. Illegal drugs move in bulk from the north coast of
Colombia in single or two-engine airplanes, fishing vessels,
freighters, and so-called go-fast boats. The shipment is broken down
into smaller units and then shipped again to Miami, the Bahamas, or
Puerto Rico.

Joe Kilmer, spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Agency's field office
in Miami, estimated that 8 percent to 10 percent of all seizures in
South Florida by the DEA come from Haiti and many more via the
country. Over the past two years, the DEA has seized dozens of
Haitian boats in the Miami River.

"We noticed a great many more freighters that were coming from Haiti
[than other countries]," Kilmer said.

The ease with which drugs can get into Haiti allows traffickers to
ship in large quantities, which cuts back on their costs.

"From the northern coast of Colombia to Haiti, it's a straight shot,"
said Bagley. He estimates that of the 350 metric tons of cocaine that
leave Colombia per year, as much as 75 metric tons pass through Haiti.

© Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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