a1039: Dany Toussaint (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

Popular Haitian Lawmaker Worries U.S.
Onetime Ally, a Suspect In Journalist's Death, Is Also Rival of
Aristide

By Scott Wilson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 4, 2002; Page A14


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- The rule prohibiting guns on the floor
of the Haitian Senate has always seemed like a reasonable nod
toward civility in a country that has known little in recent
years. But on Jan. 31 a squad of at least a half-dozen gun-toting
men appeared in the austere chamber escorting one of its members,
a charismatic former military man named Dany Toussaint.


No one stepped forward to remind Toussaint of the no-guns rule.
Nor did anyone suggest that the armed entourage might intimidate
his fellow senators, who on that day were scheduled to decide
whether Toussaint should stand trial for his allegedly central
role in Haiti's most audacious political killing in a decade. For
that to happen, the Senate would have to lift the immunity
Toussaint enjoys as a lawmaker.


Instead, the Senate sent the matter back to the magistrate
prosecuting the case with a request for more evidence tying
Toussaint to the April 2000 slaying of Jean Dominique, arguably
Haiti's most influential journalist at the time. The magistrate,
however, had fled the country, claiming he had received death
threats from Toussaint's men.


Yvon Neptune, the Senate president and, like Toussaint, a member
of the ruling Family Lavalas party, has ordered an investigation
into why gunmen were in the chamber Jan. 31. But he has already
concluded that Toussaint is posing problems for his impoverished
country and for its president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.


"In Family Lavalas, there is only one strongman, and that is
President Aristide," Neptune said. "So anytime someone brings
criticism to the party, they must be a problem."


This was not the role the United States had in mind for Toussaint
when he was the U.S. choice to bring law and order to Haiti. Now
the bon vivant, who rarely travels without an entourage,
exemplifies how U.S. policies in this troubled Caribbean nation
are complicated by some of the people selected to help carry them
out.


Toussaint is among a long line of hardened men the United States
has turned to during Haiti's losing struggle to create an
equitable judicial system and a transparent democracy in the
rough wake of a dictatorship that collapsed 16 years ago. Country
doctor turned dictator Francois Duvalier ruled Haiti from 1957
until his death in 1971 and was followed by his 19-year-old son,
Jean-Claude Duvalier. With U.S. prodding, and the country's
troubles increasing, he fled Haiti in 1986.


Since then, the United States has turned to, among others,
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, a CIA operative who headed a brutal
paramilitary squad in the early 1990s, and U.S.-trained former
military men Jean-Jacques Nau and Guy Philippe, who have been
implicated in recent coup attempts.


Like some of his predecessors, Toussaint no longer enjoys U.S.
support and has been barred from entering the United States. But
he is unlikely to disappear as an obstacle to U.S. policy goals,
which center on preserving Haiti's tenuous stability. Toussaint's
hero status, inexplicable riches and deep loyalties within the
National Police he once led have won him a vast following, making
him a threat to Aristide.


"Clearly, we were wrong about him in the beginning," said a U.S.
official. "He's a nefarious character. We believe he is involved
in political murders. We believe he's involved in drug
trafficking. And we would find it unacceptable for him to hold
any position in the government."


In September 1991, seven months after Aristide was sworn in as
Haiti's first freely elected president, the leftist former priest
was deposed by military coup. Toussaint is credited by mutual
friends with saving Aristide's life by firing back at the
attackers from inside the National Palace.


After the coup, Toussaint left with Aristide for the United
States, where they spent three years in exile. Then, in 1994, the
Clinton administration sent 20,000 soldiers to restore Aristide's
presidency. Toussaint was picked to head the interim National
Police force trained by the United States to replace the dreaded
armed forces.


But Toussaint's relationships with the United States and with
Aristide soured even as his popularity in Haiti grew. In the May
2000 legislative elections, Toussaint received more votes than
any other candidate, and his political base in Haiti's West
province, which includes this capital of 3 million people, gives
him a prime launching pad for the 2005 presidential campaign. He
has announced that he intends to run, and even his most staunch
critics say he likely will win the election.


Unless, perhaps, Aristide turns against him. Acquaintances of the
two men say their relationship is now based on mutual fear. "They
both have a lot of missiles pointed at each other," said a U.S.
official.


If Toussaint breaks with the president, Aristide would lose much
of his ability to rally poor Haitians. A number of
euphemistically named "popular organizations" that provide mass
support for Aristide or rally against his opponents respond to
Toussaint's orders -- and his money. Those include the mobs that
burned opposition headquarters and opposition-owned houses after
a Dec. 17 coup attempt.


Aristide, however, has leverage of his own. The U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration has suspected Toussaint of growing
rich by helping Haiti become a major gateway for Colombian
cocaine headed to the United States. Toussaint is one of two
senators "credibly linked by a number of U.S. government agencies
to narcotics trafficking in Haiti," according to a Dec. 20 letter
addressed to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from Sen. Mike
DeWine (R-Ohio) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who serve on
the intelligence committees of their respective chambers.


The United States is blocking more than $500 million in badly
needed international loans to Haiti, pending an agreement on
reforms between Aristide and the coalition of opposition parties
known as Democratic Convergence. Those talks are being
complicated by Toussaint and the militant wing of Family Lavalas
he represents, which contends Aristide is giving too much away to
an opposition that has little popular support.


Toussaint, who on Wednesday submitted to questioning before a new
judge on the Dominque case, has denied the drug-trafficking
allegations. But his friends say Toussaint fears the president
could try to solve his own problems with the United States by
turning Toussaint over to U.S. authorities. Aristide also could
make sure Toussaint stands trial for his alleged role in killing
the popular Dominique, a crime the president is under pressure to
solve.


Toussaint, who declined repeated interview requests, does not fit
the conventional image of a senator. He does not maintain an
office at the decrepit downtown Senate building, choosing instead
to conduct business from Dany King's Police and Security Supply
in the wealthy neighborhood of Petionville.


>From the building's second-story showroom, Toussaint sells
badges, handcuffs and anti-car-theft devices, among an array of
paramilitary gadgetry. The first floor, however, is off-limits to
the public. A man with a radio stands guard outside a large
wooden door set into a windowless facade. The man offers to pass
a message to the senator, but he will not say where Toussaint is
or when he intends to arrive.


So Toussaint leaves his friends and enemies to tell his story.
Gerard Jean-Juste, a priest who runs St. Claire's Church in the
Delmas neighborhood, met Toussaint about 15 years ago in the
United States. This was during Toussaint's first exile, when the
army major had fled Duvalier's repressive military after refusing
to carry out political killings. He stayed at Jean-Juste's
Haitian Refugee Center in Miami for a few months.


Jean-Juste portrayed Toussaint as a kind, misunderstood hero who
gets himself into trouble with his outsized ego. Toussaint, the
priest said, donates generously to the Boy Scouts and a variety
of churches. He is, Jean-Juste said, a peacemaker.


"He's good-humored, a good guy with a little too much pride,"
Jean-Juste said. "He likes talking about Dany and the coup
d'etat. He's got a big mouth, but he really makes you like him."


The Americans working on Haiti after the collapse of the Duvalier
dictatorship certainly fell for him. His associates say in a
whisper that he worked for years with "the guys at Langley,"
referring to the CIA.


Toussaint's connection to the CIA remains unclear, and the U.S.
Embassy here declined to discuss the specifics of his
relationship with the U.S. government. Toussaint has taken to
blaming his current problems with the United States on a
CIA-orchestrated vendetta. In 1997 he was held and questioned by
U.S. authorities about his alleged involvement in the 1995 murder
of an Aristide opponent, Mireille Durocher Bertin.


After receiving FBI training that included human rights courses,
Toussaint returned with Aristide to head the 5,000-member interim
National Police in 1994. But Toussaint quickly gained a
reputation for using the police as an enforcement arm of Lavalas.
When the "interim" force gave way to the National Police at the
end of 1995, U.S. officials pressured the new president, Rene
Preval, to exclude Toussaint. Toussaint became security chief for
Lavalas while maintaining ties to his handpicked leaders of the
National Police.


Now, though, a split has emerged in Lavalas over Toussaint's
rising clout. One Lavalas member described it as a struggle
between "the honest part of the party and those guided by
self-interest," warning that if the wrong side wins, Haiti could
become a narco-state.


"Right now the United States should be trying to help the cleaner
part of this party," the Lavalas member said. "Because if Dany
runs for president, he is going to be very hard to beat."


                © 2002 The Washington Post Company