22294: erzilidanto: A corruptible influence requiring U.S Congressional investigation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Erzilidanto@aol.com

For Immediate Release
Statement by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership on the Continuing Disinformation
Campaign

The U.S. as a corruptible influence in Haiti's quest to develop a justice
system has rarely been examine.

Few have publicly questioned the complete inability of the Haitian civilian
police, under the Aristide/Neptune government, to protect the Haitian people
from U.S. supported "rebel" attacks. The discussion has always revolved around
the propaganda that president Aristide had lost popular support, was corrupt
and arming gangs. How many journalist have investigated the numerous allegation
that U.S. intelligence reps in Haiti exercised a corruptible influence,
created a political climate of instability, and, in essence, turned many Haitian
cops into spies in Haiti for certain U.S. ideologues. Or, the fact that Haiti
signed an agreement with the U.S. where U.S. DEA agents had access to enter Haiti
and patrol Haitian waters and airspace to prevent drug-trafficking during the
Lavalas governments.

Who is examining the political interests being served by the current use of
the war on drugs, war on terror, the immigration laws, U.S. jails, threat of
jail and visa-carrot to wage a further destabilizing political campaign against
the people of Haiti, who despite the U.S.-supported February 29, 2004 Coup
D'etat, still are struggling to re-establish a legitimate democracy where they
are not forced into reconciling with injustice and where their votes get to
count.

The untruths circulating about in the mainstream media these days that Haiti,
under the Lavalas People's governments, was MORE of a drug-trafficking center
than under the Duvalier and military hunta dictatorships are factually
untrue. How come the current "Miami Investigation" into Haitian police officers and
Lavalas officials are not asking these questions about the morally repugnant
elites, their former army and paramilitaries and their traditional role in
supporting corruption and terror in Haiti nor  investigating the role  of the U.S.
in this seeming selective prosecution campaign to find ANY angle to further
destabilize and demoralize the people's movement towards re-assembling
democracy in Haiti. Nor, investigating U.S. accountability and U.S. reps as a
corruptible influences and obstacles in the development of the Haitian police, prison
and justice system these last ten years? Perhaps it's time to officially
request that these matters are addressed by a U.S. Congressional investigation.

To that end, the Haitian Lawyers Leadership, attaches below two documents: "
Separating Cops, Spies" by Sam Skolnik written in March 1, 1999, Legal Times,
and we remind U.S. Senate and Congressional members of the Harkin's Senate
speech regarding the credibility of those who furnish information to U.S.
policymakers about President Aristide and about Haiti in general.

Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
June 7, 2004

*****

EX-DOJ OFFICIAL CLAIMS BID TO KEEP CIA OUT OF POLICE TRAINING

PROGRAM COST HER A JOB


By Sam Skolnik


The former director of the Justice Department program that trains foreign

police officers has alleged that she was forced from her post after raising

concerns that department officials refused to protect her office's law

enforcement mission from possible CIA encroachment.


Janice Stromsem, until last month director of the International Criminal

Investigative Training Assistance Program, has filed a grievance with the

department's equal employment opportunity office, claiming that her efforts

to implement a policy preventing ICITAP's staff from engaging in

intelligence activities resulted in her ultimately being removed from her

job.


The ICITAP program has spawned several complaints from disgruntled

employees. But the issues raised by Stromsem are especially sensitive, given

Cold War- era concerns about keeping domestic law enforcement free of

international espionage.


That historic divide is a flashpoint at ICITAP, a 13-year-old program whose

staffers work to win trust among newly emerging, often unstable

democracies_many of which have been of great interest to American

intelligence in the past.


The line between law enforcement and intelligence has been blurring in

recent years, causing tensions among U.S. government agencies. The most

recent: allegations that U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq were working in

concert with the CIA.


Stromsem filed her EEO action in December 1998, but the underlying incident

at the heart of her grievance dates back to 1996.


That year, she claims, her efforts to implement a policy walling ICITAP

staffers off from intelligence-gathering activities was rejected by Mark

Richard, a powerful career attorney in the department's Criminal Division.

In the fall of 1998, Stromsem claims, she was contacted about the matter by

the office of Inspector General Michael Bromwich, which has been probing a

series of allegations of misconduct at ICITAP and its sister office, the

Office of Professional Development and Training (OPDAT), which trains

foreign prosecutors. Stromsem told Bromwich about the aborted

anti-intelligence policy, and provided documents to back her claim,

according to her attorney, Irving Kator of D.C.'s Kator, Scott & Parks.


Following that contact, Bromwich called in Richard, according to Kator. Soon

after that meeting, Stromsem was told she would be leaving ICITAP, Kator

contends.


HOLDER DENIES CONNECTION


In an interview late last week, Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said

that there was no cause and effect involved in Stromsem's departure from the

ICITAP program.


"Bottom line, there was no linkage between the IG investigation and Janice

Stromsem's removal, " Holder says.


Asked the department's view on whether programs like ICITAP should ever be

open to intelligence agency participation, Holder says: "We cannot comment

on intelligence activities regarding ICITAP , no matter how unfounded the

allegations might be. We reaffirm the exclusive mission of ICITAP is

international training and nation building."


Stromsem, now an official at the Global Bureau of the U.S. Agency for

International Development (AID), and Richard both decline comment.


A CIA spokeswoman also declines comment.


One U.S. government official, who asks not to be identified, says that "the

CIA is not in any way involved in ICITAP . If you were to report that, you

would be wrong."


RECRUITING IN HAITI


Stromsem is not the only one who has voiced concerns that intelligence

agents have sought to infiltrate ICITAP, a $25 million operation with some

40 staffers fanned out across the Caribbean, Latin America, the former

Soviet Union, and Eastern Europe.


According to four former ICITAP staffers and one State Department official,

the CIA has from time to time sought to recruit staffers, contractors, and

trainees affiliated with the program in countries such as Haiti and El

Salvador, where ICITAP has trained thousands of police officers.


One former ICITAP contractor in Haiti says bluntly that he and other

instructors were informed by students "that they were solicited by U.S.

intelligence services."


Charles Allen, a legal adviser to the Richardson, Texas, police department

who worked for ICITAP in 1995, says the practice, in which intelligence

agents would approach the students during off hours and weekends to try to

recruit them, "was wrong."


"When we went to Haiti, we went with the understanding that the country had

never had a democratic government or civilian police force, " says Allen.

Intelligence recruiting was "not good for those cadets, not good for Haiti,

and not good for the program. We were to make civilian police out of them,

not spies."


Further, The Nation magazine reported in February 1996 that the CIA had

placed agents in the Haitian National Police, which was rebuilt after the

1994 U.S. invasion and the installment of Washington-backed ruler Jean-

Bertrand Aristide. The magazine reported that those CIA recruitments took

place during ICITAP training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo.


There was no specific ICITAP policy in place to prevent them from doing so.


In late 1995, Stromsem decided to write a policy that would set in stone

what had been an unwritten rule prohibiting ICITAP staffers from

communicating with agents of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, or

any other covert intelligence gathering group.


"It is critical for the credibility of the program and for the legitimacy of

U.S. Government efforts in overseas police reform that ICITAP personnel and

contractors be exclusively dedicated to fulfilling ICITAP's mission goals

and objectives, " states the executive summary of the proposal, a copy of

which was obtained by Legal Times. "It is manifestly evident that any

connection between representatives of ICITAP and any internal intelligence

gathering organization would be detrimental to our mission, and would be an

especially sensitive issue with many countries with which we expect to be

dealing in the future."


The proposal also contended that the Foreign Assistance Act of 1960

specifies that no foreign aid money can be used to provide assistance to

U.S. intelligence agencies.


Though it is a Justice Department program, ICITAP receives most of its funds

from the State Department_i.e., from foreign assistance money.


PROPOSAL REJECTED


Stromsem presented the proposed initiative to Richard in March 1996,

according to internal DOJ memorandums.


But Richard, then Stromsem's supervisor, wrote to her on April 25, 1996,

saying, "I have serious concerns about this statement and do not want to see

it moved on without further discussions, " according to an internal DOJ

document.


Richard's decision to nix the proposal was firmed up in a meeting the

following day, according to two participants in the meeting, which included

Richard, Stromsem, and at least three other Criminal Division officials.


Richard said he did not want to preclude putting ICITAP resources at the

disposal of intelligence agencies_including the CIA_when needed, according

to the two participants, who asked not to be named.


In a Jan. 7, 1999, letter to Deputy Attorney General Holder, Stromsem's

attorney wrote that " Stromsem was surprised when Mark Richard . . . refused

to approve the memo. Consequently, the directive was never transmitted to

ICITAP staff and the issue of the use of ICITAP employees for intelligence

work was never dealt with directly."


Kator claims that despite Stromsem's positive job appraisals, Richard forced

her out of ICITAP after four years at its helm, denied her a raise she is

owed, and bad-mouthed her to potential new employers.


Kator says he has received no reply to his letter to Holder. A senior

Justice official says that Holder did respond to Kator in January, adding

that the letter was forwarded to the IG, in accordance with standard

procedure.


Bromwich is apparently interested in probing the question of alleged CIA

involvement in ICITAP, according to two government officials who have been

questioned by the inspector general's office. The officials say his

investigators first raised the issue with them.


Paul Martin, a spokesman for the inspector general, declines comment on the

status of the investigation.


STROMSEM INVESTIGATED


Stromsem_who Kator says will also likely file a whistleblower complaint soon

at the Office of Special Counsel_may herself be a target of the IG's

inquiry.


Although no actions have been taken against her as a result of the wide-

ranging ICITAP probe, Stromsem, according to three Justice officials

familiar with the matter, may be under investigation for relatively minor

allegations of workplace harassment and other charges.


(Stemming largely from the complaints of a pair of whistleblowers, the

inquiry has grown significantly in the last two years and involves

allegations ranging from security breaches to contracting abuses to visa

fraud to hiring irregularities and workplace harassment. (See "Blowing

Whistles at DOJ, " Sept. 21, 1998, Page 2.) The investigation was first

reported by Insight, a weekly news magazine published by The Washington

Times Corp., in September 1997.)


Stromsem does have at least one high-powered backer, however. Sen. Edward

Kennedy (D-Mass.) wrote Holder on Jan. 19, urging him to take the necessary

steps to ensure that Stromsem is treated fairly.


And at least one official at the State Department supports many of

Stromsem's claims.


"As much as we wanted her to continue on as ICITAP director, it was clear

they were making life difficult for her at Justice, " says the official, who

asks not to be named. "Jan has the complete and absolute confidence of the

State Department and AID."


POLICY DEBATED


Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a civil

liberties group, says Richard and other higher-ups at Justice may have

concluded that in the larger national interests of fighting terrorism and

international drug smuggling, it is necessary to keep open the option of

allowing the CIA into programs that on their face have nothing to do with

intelligence gathering.


But Martin warns that there can be "all sorts of terrible effects" when

intelligence agencies are allowed to recruit in programs like ICITAP.


"It can be positively detrimental to the rule of law in countries that for

the first time are trying to build their own intelligence agencies and do

away with the legacies of secret police, " Martin says. She adds that the

suspicion of CIA involvement "is best addressed by the U.S. government being

forthright. It's best to draw a bright line."


Two former ICITAP staffers, who ask not to be identified, concur.


"I didn't sign up to work for the CIA, " says one former staffer. Richard's

decision to reject the intelligence policy "conceptually subverted the need

for an ICITAP."


Former intelligence community officials say, however, that if the CIA has

attempted to gather intelligence or recruit agents through ICITAP, it likely

had good reasons to do so.


Stewart Baker, general counsel of the National Security Agency from 1992 to

1994, says that it's generally not unhealthy for law enforcement and the

intelligence community to be working more closely.


"That's a Cold War notion, that intelligence gathering is dark and dirty,

and law enforcement is just about catching crooks. That world is gone, "

says Baker, a partner at D.C.'s Steptoe & Johnson.


Jeffrey Smith, general counsel of the CIA from 1995 to 1996, and his

predecessor, Elizabeth Rindskopf, decline comment on the allegations

surrounding ICITAP.


But they note that they worked with the general counsel of the Peace Corps

to ensure adherence to the corps' rigid policy of walling off CIA contacts.

(Stromsem used the Peace Corps model in developing her policy proposal,

according to one ex-ICITAP employee.)


Regarding the Peace Corps, "We bent over backwards there to make sure we

were very correct, " says Rindskopf, who is of counsel at the D.C. office of

St. Louis' Bryan Cave. "It seems to me to be the wise policy."


RICHARD CLOSE TO RENO, CIA


Whatever the propriety of the policy or lack thereof, there is little

question that Stromsem's allegations are having an impact at the

department_in no small part because they involve one of its most powerful

and important behind-the-scenes players.


Richard has several adamant defenders, both inside and outside the

department. Even members of the civil liberties community say he is a smart

and honorable prosecutor.


Richard, a Brooklyn native who has spent more than 30 years at the

department, reportedly has the ear of Attorney General Janet Reno.


"Mark Richard has been a longtime official of DOJ, " says Holder. "I've

known him for 23 years. He's a totally dedicated, selfless public servant."


He also has friends in the intelligence community. In fact, he is regarded

as one of Justice's top experts on intelligence, having co-written a report

with Rindskopf, the former CIA general counsel, in May 1995 on improving

ties between Main Justice and the CIA.


Some of his detractors at the department say quietly that Richard carries

the water at Justice for the Langley spymasters.


But Smith, the former CIA general counsel, disagrees.


"Believe me, when I was out there, he took some skin off my back, " says

Smith, now a partner at D.C.'s Arnold & Porter. "He has no problem sticking

up for the Justice Department."


RICHARD'S DUTIES CHANGE


Richard is recovering from lung surgery and is now working part time; his

supervisors expect him to resume full-time duties before too long. But his

portfolio has changed. According to an internal department memo dated Jan.

26, Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General James Robinson has assumed

direct oversight responsibility over ICITAP and OPDAT_taking them away from

Richard. The Jan. 26 memo came less than three weeks after Kator's letter

landed on Eric Holder's desk.


Richard Rossman, chief of staff to AAG Robinson, says Stromsem's departure

from ICITAP and Richard's removal from the program's oversight are not

related to the IG investigation.


"I can assure you that the IG investigation had nothing to do with these

decisions, " says Rossman. "That, I'm adamant about."


Robinson, Rossman says, is interested in education programs, having served

as dean at Wayne State University Law School in Detroit before coming to

Justice, and came up with the idea of taking charge of the policing programs

on his own.


What's more, says Rossman, "the whole international training thing is

mushrooming into an important part of what we do here."


In fact, international police training long predates the appearance of

ICITAP in 1986. And there may be some cautionary lessons there for the

department.


In 1962, Congress created the Office of Public Safety as an adjunct to AID

to formally incorporate police assistance into foreign aid programs.


In 1974, Congress terminated that program amid charges that U.S. trainers

condoned the use of police brutality and torture_and were too closely

identified with the CIA.

******
(Senate - September 28, 1994)

[Page: S13556]
Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am going to be giving a little longer talk on
Haiti a little bit later on this afternoon, but since we are in morning
business right now I thought I would take a few minutes just to discuss a couple of
items that appeared in the morning press this morning about Haiti, one directly
on point and one sort of halfway on point.

I see on the front page of the New York Times this morning that there is a
story that Congress is going to do a complete study of the need for the CIA and
reformulating the CIA. I will just read the first few paragraphs from the New
York Times this morning. It says:

Having concluded that Central Intelligence Agency cannot ably chart its
course in the post-cold war world, Congress is creating an independent commission
to rethink the agency's role and review its continued existence in its present
form.

The new commission, being formed despite active opposition by the CIA's
leaders * * * will have the broadest possible mandate to propose changes in the
structure, the power and the budget as well as the very existence of the CIA * * *

`The place just needs a total overhaul,' said Senator Arlen Specter, a
Pennsylvania Republican who served six years on the Senate Select Committee in the
Intelligence Committee and will be the senior Republican in January.

It goes on to quote Senator Specter:

`We are spending a lot of money on the CIA and there have been doubts for
years as to whether we are getting our money's worth.'

You may ask: What does that have to do with Haiti?

Well, on the inside of the New York Times there is another article that says
the CIA is reportedly taking a role in Haiti.

Well, I read the article. Basically, it says that the CIA may be involved in
Haiti in terms of gathering intelligence on those that may seek to assassinate
or to bring harm to Aristide and his supporters.

Now, again, Mr. President, I understand the need for intelligence, and
especially in Haiti. We have 15,000 troops there, and they are at risk. So far, thin
gs have gone very well in Haiti. The people of Haiti are looking upon us as
liberators. We see it every day in the paper. They are overjoyed that we have
come to take over this terrible yoke of repression of their military and their
ruthless police force that they have had in Haiti.

There may be instances where in the future those who wish to disrupt this
process will provoke violence. It may happen soon. There may be instances where
our own troops are put at an even greater risk. So we do need that intelligence
and I understand that. And I am fully supportive of actions taken by our
Government to get that kind of intelligence to protect our forces, to protect
those now in Haiti, the parliamentarians who are bravely meeting to discuss the
amnesty law, to protect President Aristide once he
returns to Haiti, to make sure that we have knowledge of any actions that may
be taken to provoke violence, to assassinate, to disrupt the process to
restore democracy to Haiti.

But I am concerned about the CIA doing it. More specifically, I am concerned
about who in the CIA will be doing it.

This Senator had an occasion a little over a year ago to have many meetings
with the Director of the CIA and the people in the CIA about reports that they
had come up with about President Aristide--reports which were given in secret
session here with Senators just about a year ago in which it was put out. And
this has all been in the popular press, so I am not divulging anything that
was said in that that room. In fact, I was not in that room during that meeting.
I went up later on for a different meeting. But I had countless hours of
meetings with the head of the CIA and the people that
work under him who had been working on Haiti for some years.

Mr. President, all I can tell you is I was greatly disturbed by the
misinformation and I think the total distortion of the record of President
Aristide that was given out by the CIA. I will not go into it at any great
length than that here, but I could point to instances, documented, where the CIA,
quite frankly, was taking certain untruths and then passing them on as though
they were indeed factual.

So my concern, Mr. President, is that the very CIA operatives and people who
were involved before, first of all, in opposing President Aristide when he ran
for office and who were actively involved perhaps in supporting another
candidate for that office who did not win, and later on the operatives who were
involved in picking up and moving erroneous, false information about President
Aristide and then putting it out as though it was fact; that these
same people will now be operate in Haiti. That concerns me greatly.

And so I am hopeful that the legitimate need for the intelligence that we
have will be carried out by individuals in the CIA or in Defense Intelligence who
do not have some previous ax to grind, who maybe were divorced from this
operation in the past. Because I am concerned that if we just go down that same
path again with these same individuals who have shown their true colors that
they have some certain ideological bent, that they have close connections with
other elements in the Haitian military, that we
might find ourselves, first, gaining erroneous information and erroneous
intelligence information or, second, getting good intelligence information and not
acting on it or diverting it in some way that will not be helpful to
President Aristide and his supporters in Haiti.

So, I am very concerned about this report the CIA is now taking a role in
Haiti.

It is reported here in the New York Times that the officials briefing
Congress told lawmakers that one of the goals was to create a political
climate that would help put into effect the agreement that former President Jimmy
Carter reached with Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, Haiti's military leader, on
September 18.

I do not know what that means, `to create a political climate.' And I do not
know that the CIA ought to be involved in creating a political climate. If
this is true, then someone better put the reins on the CIA. Their job is not to
create political climates. Their role is not to support one candidate over
another. Their role is to collect information and intelligence and to pass it on
to policymakers--that is us, that is the President--the policymakers who then
act upon that intelligence. But I daresay their role is not to create a
political climate.

So, Mr. President, the Congress is now reviewing the role of the CIA, with
comments from both sides of the aisle as to whether or not the CIA is effective
or whether we are getting our money's worth or whether it ought to be revised
and restructured. We are, right in the middle of this, in a very tense
situation in a country close to our borders in which we have 15,000 troops. We have a
lot at stake in ensuring that we continue on this process peacefully, that we
continue on the process of returning President Aristide
to his rightful place as the elected President of Haiti, in returning the
parliamentarians who were elected in 1990, setting up the electoral structure in
Haiti so they can again have free and fair and open elections sometime before
the end of this year for their Parliament next year. We have a lot at stake.
And while doing all this, I daresay it causes me a great deal of concern to
think the CIA, now, is `creating a political climate.' That is not their role.

I call upon the President of the United States to rein in the CIA, to make
sure that those who are gathering intelligence in Haiti not be those who were
charged with that before. I think they have basically established themselves as
not being credible.

We need new people down there: Defense intelligence, Navy, Army, Air Force
intelligence, those who have not been tainted by any of this. I am not saying
everyone in the CIA is bad, do not get me wrong. There are good intelligence
people in the CIA.

So I call upon the President and Director Woolsey to make sure we have a new
team down there, that we have new people gathering this intelligence, and that
they are not charged with creating a political climate but only charged with
what they should do: That is gathering intelligence information so our
policymakers can act upon that.

So, I will have more to say about Haiti later on. I just wanted to take this
time during morning business to raise these very serious questions about the
role of the CIA in Haiti. After all we have done, after all our military has
done in Haiti--and I do not think there is any American who does not just get a
great sense of pride from what our military has done in Haiti. We see the
Haitian people turning over their arms to the military, treating them like
liberators, the liberators they really are, and it gives us a great
sense of satisfaction and pride in our military. I do not want that
undermined by people in our intelligence agencies, especially in the CIA, who have some
other ax to grind.

So I hope--again I just say for emphasis sake--I hope this report is not
true. I hope the CIA is not involved in creating a political climate in Haiti.

I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.


[Page: S13557]
Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for the
quorum call be rescinded.

The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

The Chair recognizes the Senator from Wyoming [Mr. Simpson].

*********
Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers Leadership
******

******

"Men anpil chaj pa lou"  is Kreyol for - "Many hands make light a heavy load."

See, The Haitian Leadership Networks'  7 "men anpil chaj pa

lou" campaigns to help restore Haiti's independence, the will of the mass
electorate and the rule of law. See,
http://www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/haitianlawyers.html ; http://www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaigns.html

and Haitiaction.net

********

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