Did the US government kill Haitian President Jovenel Moïse?
Just a list of articles and quotes for now
I haven’t taken the time to pummel this information into a cohesive shape—anyway it’s probably too early to attempt to do so—but it seems useful to compile some articles and quotes about the July 7th, 2021 assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse. With his palace guards providing little resistance to the attackers, Moïse was murdered in his bedroom by a cadre of Haitians and Colombian mercenaries, some of whom were affiliated with US intelligence and law enforcement. The topic is timely because the US and UN are in the process of agitating for the deployment of peacekeeping troops to Haiti to quell ongoing unrest triggered in part by this disorderly transfer of power. I focused on quoting information that I consider suggestive of US government involvement in the assassination, as well as information about the escalating international response to the ensuing violence and chaos. Given the US role in previous violence in Haiti (some of which is covered in articles under the Historical Context section), this is obviously a set of issues worth examining. I expect to add items to this over time, and it may eventually serve as source material for a real piece. Hopefully people find it useful.
06/30/2021, Orinoco Tribune: CIA Director Arrives in Colombia to Lead ‘Sensitive Security Mission’—Venezuela on Alert
Visit by CIA director William Burns to Colombia for a sensitive, intelligence-related mission, article dated June 30th, 2021, a week before the assassination, which was committed by mercenaries who were mostly Colombian, some with possible ties to US military, intel, & law enforcement.
07/07/2021, Guardian: ‘No one’s in charge’: Haiti faces violent new era after killing of president
“Fulton Armstrong, an American University Haiti specialist, said the soaring violence meant he was shocked, but not surprised by Moïse’s murder. ‘When you have these permissive escalations of violence, where innocent people get shot or killed or kidnapped, if there is no action, then one of these goons-for-hire that Haitian politicians use is going to take a shot,’ said Armstrong, who was the CIA’s chief in Haiti during the 1990s. ‘These things have to have a denouement.’”
07/09/2021, Haitian Times: Mourning Haiti's Moise, Who Stood Alone On An Island
“The assassination of Jovenel Moise at the hands of foreign mercenaries raises many questions for me and I ask again: What role, if any, is the CIA playing here?”
“There is absolutely no way that the agency was unaware of this plot because one of the things we learned clearly during the odious Trump regime is that every foreign leader, including allies, are routinely monitored.”
“The last Haitian president to be assassinated while in office was Jean Vilbrun Guillaume Sam. He was killed in July 1915, following a period of intense instability where Haiti was changing presidents like people change shirts. That instability was the catalyst for the American invasion months later. The U.S. would occupy Haiti until 1934.”
“And so we are 106 years later at a similar crossroads and there are people who are making references to that period. The U.S should not get involved militarily. It is time for Haitians to take the lead in solving their problems. It’s about time we take the training wheels off and let Haitians ride out this crisis.”
“I was told by almost everyone I know in his circle that Moise was arrogant and did not listen to advice, sage or otherwise. He fancied and presented himself as a man of the people, hailing from Port-de-Paix, a seaside city in the country’s northwest. He dressed in clothes that engulfed his small frame and spoke like a peasant.”
“But the peasants did not love him back. He was mistrusted and seen as a puppet of the elite whose interests he was defending. He had no support from the masses, the civil society nor the political class. Even his PHTK cohorts abandoned him. He was a man alone on an island.”
“His only trump card was from the former president of the United States. That administration needed Haiti’s vote to ostracize Venezuela. Moise made the pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago, not the White House, to etch out a transactional agreement: Give me the vote and I got your back. “
“This deal was not well-received in Haiti. For one thing, Venezuela was the only ally that respected Haiti and gave the country a sweetheart deal in the PetroCaribe program, where the Haitian government is the exclusive seller of oil and reinvest the profits. Of course, that turned into a huge, unsettled scandal with people still asking for financial transparency. Moise was deeply involved as a bag man for others before being tapped by his predecessor to lead the PHTK party, according to audits of the PetroCaribe funds.”
07/09/2021, Chicago Tribune: Colombians implicated in the assassination of Haitian President recruited by four companies and traveled to the Caribbean nation in two groups, according Colombia police
07/14/2021, Telesur: The Threads of the Plot To Assassinate Moise Point To Florida
“In social networks, the CTU Security mercenary appears with Ileana Ross Lehtinen, a Cuban American citizen and former Republican congresswoman from Florida. Despite the graphic evidence, she now says she ‘does not remember even the slightest part of the person in this photo’”
07/15/2021, New York Times: Haiti Police Hold President’s Palace Security Chief
“The head of palace security for President Jovenel Moïse, who was assassinated last week at his home, was taken into police custody on Thursday, deepening investigators’ focus into the possibility that Haitian insiders had eased the killers’ path.
“The palace security chief, Dimitri Hérard, made several stopovers in the Colombian capital, Bogotá, in the months before the assassination. Haitian officials say a group of former soldiers from Colombia, whom they accuse of acting as mercenaries, played a central role in the killing.”
07/15/2021, New York Times: Suspects in Haitian President’s Killing Met to Plan a Future Without Him
“Another participant in one of the meetings with Mr. Sanon also said there was never any hint of a plot to kill the president.
“‘Never!!! never!!! Never!!!’ the attendee, Frantz Gilot, a consultant for the United Nations, said in a text message, adding that about 20 people had been present. ‘Sanon introduced himself as a potential candidate,’ he said, ‘and talked about his dream and vision for Haiti.’”
07/16/2021, Guardian: Haitian leader’s assassination remains a mystery: ‘We may never know’
“Fulton Armstrong, an American University Haiti expert who headed the CIA’s branch there in the early 1990s, said his gut also told him the crime was the work of what US officials once called Haiti’s MREs: ‘the morally repugnant elites’.
“‘I usually think of them as the funders and the winkers and nodders to most conspiracies [in Haiti]. They really do have the ability to move things around … to buy stuff, to do communications, to do weapons,’ he said, before admitting: ‘But it’s a shot in the dark.’”
07/17/2021, The Intercept: AT LEAST SEVEN COLOMBIANS IN HAITI ASSASSINATION RECEIVED U.S. TRAINING
“MORE THAN a quarter of the ex-Colombian soldiers currently suspected in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse received U.S. military training, The Intercept confirmed Friday, with some of the alleged attackers participating in programs as recently as 2015 that ranged from vehicle maintenance and professional development to counterterrorism and drug war operations. Courses were held in both Colombia and the United States.”
07/19/2021, NPR: Ariel Henry Will Become Haiti's Prime Minister, Ending A Power Struggle
“A political power struggle for control of Haiti's government appears to have come to an end. Claude Joseph, who had previously served as prime minister and seized political control after the shocking assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, will step down, the country's elections minister confirmed to NPR.”
Wikipedia: Henry "entered politics as a leader of the Democratic Convergence movement which sought to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide"
07/26/2021, The Intercept: COLOMBIAN MERCENARIES AND THE ASSASSINATION OF HAITIAN PRESIDENT JOVENEL MOÏSE
07/31/2021, Univision: Who are the U.S. drug informants caught up in the Haiti assassination?
“Jaar, the owner of an import and export business in Haiti, would go on to be one of Haiti’s most prolific drug traffickers, helping smuggle at least seven tons of Colombian cocaine into the country, destined mostly for the United States between 1998 and 2012, according to court records. He went by the alias ‘Whiskey’ according to his 2013 indictment.
“To save his skin, he became a U.S. government informant for the Drug Enforcement Administration or DEA, though he eventually landed in jail in 2013, pleading guilty to stealing 50 kilos of the cocaine he was supposed to be helping agents seize, worth around $1 million.”
“A month earlier, Jaar allegedly attended a bizarre meeting in Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, where a plan was discussed, with supposed U.S. government backing, to detain 34 Haitian businessmen and government officials involved in drug trafficking and money laundering, using Federal Bureau of Investigation and Drug Enforcement Administration agents.
“U.S. officials deny any such plan existed and Haitian police say the nine participants were actually involved in the plot to kill the president. Most are in detention, except for Jaar who is a fugitive and two other Haitians, a justice ministry official who was fired this year for corruption and a former senator.”
“‘If he was informing the U.S. government of the plot to kill the Haitian president we have a solemn obligation even with criminals to inform the target of that plot. The President of Haiti would have been notified. We could not have let something like that pass,’ said Mike Vigil, former chief of DEA for the Caribbean.”
“The DEA has previously acknowledged that one of the other participants now in detention was working as a ‘confidential source.’ The DEA did not name the person but said that following the assassination the informant reached out to his contacts at the DEA and later surrendered to local authorities, along with one other.
“The DEA has also strongly denied any involvement in the assassination during which some assassins yelled ‘DEA’ during the attack on the president's residence. ‘These individuals were not acting on behalf of DEA,’ it said.”
“‘Who has the US, and the DEA specifically, been working with in Haiti? To what end?’ asked Jake Johnston, a Haiti expert at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.
“‘Have those relationships compromised the agency’s ability to do its job and actually undermined security and stability in Haiti?’ he asked. ‘More directly, given previous investigations and arrests, what evidence of high-level government and private sector corruption or criminality does the US possess? And could that be, in any way, related to the assassination of the president?’ he added.”
“Jaar ‘was a very high-profile (U.S. government) informant,’ said Vigil.”
“‘I was shocked to learn that Mr Jaar was given rewards notwithstanding the fact that it had been discovered that he had been a double agent and had actually stolen part of the cocaine that he was working with the DEA to have seized,’ Francois’ lawyer, Curt Obront, told Univision.”
09/20/2021, Univision: Who is the mysterious Arcangel Pretel and why did he disappear after the assassination in Haiti?
“Pretel allegedly claimed to have worked for the FBI and invited agents to visit the office of CTU ‘on a number of occasions and the agents were made aware of the actions of CTU and the upcoming [Haiti] business plan,’ the lawyers say.”
“Suddenly, and inexplicably, the plan changed. Pretel issued new orders, according to audio tapes of interviews with some of the jailed Colombians by agents investigating the assassination, which were revealed exclusively by Caracol TV in Colombia last month.
“They were now going to go to the president’s house armed with an arrest warrant. "Gabriel tells me that we are going to support the Haitian authorities with the arrest," said Capt. German Rivera, one of the Colombians captured who met Pretel in Cali in the 1990s.
“In reality, the plan was to kill the president. The order allegedly came from Pretel and a well-connected former Haitian justice ministry official, Joseph Felix Badio, according to the Caracol jail tapes.
“Most of the Colombians fell in line, believing the mission was sanctioned by the U.S. government. Pretel would send selfies to Rivera via whatsapp, showing him entering U.S. government buildings for high level meetings, according to Rivera.
“‘There’s a lot here that doesn’t ring true. The FBI doesn’t do this sort of thing,’ said Mike Vigil, former DEA head of international operations, referring to a possible U.S. government link to the assassination. U.S. government agencies have a duty to inform if they know someone’s life is in danger, especially the president of another country, he explained.
Besides Moise was considered a U.S. ally.
“However, sometimes informants engage in actions behind the U.S. back. ‘Every agency has informants who play both sides of the fence and they do things DEA and FBI don’t approve of. We sometimes dance with the devil but we can’t get the information we need without these guys,’ added Vigil.
“Pretel was not the only U.S. government informant linked to the assassination of Moise. ‘Either Mr Pretel went rogue or some heads are going to roll at the FBI and DEA,’ said Regina de Moraes, a criminal immigration attorney who represents DEA informant, Joseph Vincent, a Haitian-American jailed in Haiti as a suspect in the assassination.”
09/28/2021, Al Jazeera: Haiti elections postponed indefinitely amid political crisis
“Haiti’s elections and a constitutional referendum, scheduled for the coming months, have been postponed indefinitely after the dismissal of the electoral administration, plunging the country into further uncertainty.
“Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who was appointed by late President Jovenel Moise two days before being assassinated, published a decree on Monday announcing the members of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) had been dismissed.
“On Tuesday, Henry told CNN the process to replace the council had begun and elections would take place after a constitutional review in the ‘first months of the coming year’.
“‘We want to move as quickly as possible to the restoration of democracy through elections,’ he said, adding that the members of the current council were dismissed because they ‘cannot organise elections’.”
10/19/2021, Telesur: Bolivia Many of Moise's Assassins Were in La Paz to Kill Arce
“‘This [Germán Ribera], who accepted having participated in the assassination of the Haitian president, arrived in Bolivia two days before the national elections [of 2020]. That's not all, between the dates October 16 and 19, we also managed to identify the entry into the country of other gentlemen,’ he said.
“The list of people who traveled to La Paz on those dates also includes Venezuelan opposition member Antonio Intriago Valera, owner of the company CTU Security (registered as Counter Terrorist Unit Federal Academy LLC), who contracted the mercenaries who killed the former Haitian president and was also linked to the failed Operation Gideon in Venezuela. Ronald Salamandra and Enrique Galindo Arias swell the list of citizens who traveled to Bolivia from the U.S. and by land through Viru Viru (Santa Cruz).”
12/12/2021, New York Times: Haiti’s Leader Kept a List of Drug Traffickers. His Assassins Came for It.
“Before being assassinated in July, he had been working on a list of powerful politicians and businesspeople involved in Haiti’s drug trade, with the intention of handing over the dossier to the American government, according to four senior Haitian advisers and officials tasked with drafting the document.
“The president had ordered the officials to spare no one, not even the power brokers who had helped propel him into office, they said — one of several moves against suspected drug traffickers that could explain a motive for the assassination.
“When gunmen burst into Mr. Moïse’s residence and killed him in his bedroom, his wife, Martine Moïse — who had also been shot and lay bleeding on the floor, pretending to be dead — described how they stayed to search the room, hurriedly digging through his files.
““‘That’s it,’” they finally declared to one another before fleeing, she told The New York Times in her first interview after the assassination, adding that she did not know what the gunmen had taken.”
01/03/2022, BBC: Haiti PM Ariel Henry survived assassination attempt - officials
01/07/2022, Univision: Could former Colombian soldier be "cornerstone" to solving Haiti assassination?
“Palacios, 43, a decorated former Colombian soldier, was part of a team of about 20 retired military who was hired by a Miami security firm last year, supposedly to provide back up for a major development project that never was realized. Instead, the former soldiers were allegedly duped into carrying out the assassination, misled into believing they were acting with the blessing of U.S. government.”
01/20/2022, Univision: A convicted drug trafficker charged in US federal court for conspiracy to murder Haiti's president
“Rodolphe Jaar, a convicted drug trafficker and former DEA informant was charged Thursday in federal court in Miami with conspiring to assassinate Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.”
01/25/2022, Miami Herald: Grenade-dropping drones, a paranoid president, guards who ran: Latest on Haiti assassination
"Several suspects told police that they were informed in the weeks before the raid that the plan had the backing of U.S. law enforcement agencies."
02/07/2022, Center for Economic and Policy Research: They Fooled Us
“At 2:59 a.m. on February 7, 2021, Haitian police officers raided an apartment complex known as the Petit Bois residences in the Port-au-Prince’s Tabarre neighborhood. The buildings, a series of one-story, multicolored houses, sit just about one mile from the United States Embassy. By the time the sun had risen, photos of more than a dozen individuals lying or sitting on the pavement inside the compound were circulating on social media. Authorities had collected belongings, including a pile of crumpled Haitian bank notes, a condom, a handful of guns, and a rusted machete in the street. In one photo, a short man with disheveled salt-and-pepper hair, an oversized T-shirt, pajama pants, and socks with flip flops stares defiantly back at the camera. Altogether, 18 individuals were arrested, including a sitting Supreme Court judge, a high-level police inspector, and a former government minister, all accused of organizing a violent coup d’etat.“
“Exactly five months after the arrests at Petit Bois, in the early morning hours of July 7, Jovenel Moïse was assassinated, shot at least a dozen times in his home in the hills above Port-au-Prince. None of the two dozen or so security guards ostensibly protecting the president were injured, raising questions over their involvement in an apparent plot. Herard, hailed as thwarting the February plot, is now in jail. So far, more than 40 suspects in the assassination have been arrested, including 18 retired members of the Colombian military and more than a dozen Haitian police officers. Arrest warrants have been issued for many more individuals, including another Supreme Court judge.”
“Police found a crumpled-up arrest warrant in a home used by some of the suspects; it was the same warrant that had been used in Petit Bois. And, in another parallel to the February events, multiple suspects in the assassination have claimed that various US agencies were aware of or directly supported their actions. In a highly unusual statement, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) even acknowledged that at least one of those arrested in connection with the assassination had worked for the agency as a confidential informant.”
“‘We’re putting a group together and getting ready for if there is US support,’ he said. And, I asked, what sort of connections did he have with the US government? ‘We are trying to make connections with people that can help us,’ he vaguely explained, before adding that he had access to individuals in both the State Department and White House. Sanon assured me that Moïse would be willing to resign. ‘The president is just waiting for someone to tell him to go,’ he said.”
“On February 6, 2021, Dimitri Herard spoke by telephone with a man identifying himself as Philippe MarcAndre, according to audio recordings released by the government after the arrests at Petit Bois. Herard, the head of the president’s security, agreed to send a contingent of troops under his command to the apartment complex that night in preparation for the following day, when president Jovenel Moïse would leave the palace and a new president would be sworn in. ‘You'll have loads of money,’ MarcAndre tells Herard.”
“Herard, who studied at an elite Ecuadorian military university and had been trained in intelligence, made for an interesting co-conspirator. He had developed a close relationship with former president Michel Martelly, who had picked Jovenel Moïse as his successor. And, on Martelly’s recommendation, Herard had served as head of the National Palace General Security Unit (USGPN) in the years since Moïse had taken office.
“If he was involved, it meant one of two things: either the president’s inner circle had turned on him, or he was doing counterintelligence. The fact that the president had publicly thanked him for thwarting the plot hinted at the latter. But, as the recordings made clear, without Herard’s involvement, there simply was no plan, or, at least, no ability to actually carry one out.”
“The plan had begun at least five months earlier. In late August, Marie Antoinette Gauthier, a doctor and former medical director of Haiti's general hospital, received a call from someone she didn’t know, a man identifying himself as Mark Philippe. He wanted to talk about the future of Haiti. He claimed to have support from the US government and wanted to help put together a transitional government. The two struck up something of a friendship, and often spoke for an hour or more in the evenings. Other members of Gauthier’s family also started speaking with Philippe, including her sister, a high-ranking inspector in the Haitian National Police. ‘He became almost part of the family,’ Gauthier said, looking back months later.
“Philippe told the Gauthiers that he was working with Daniel Whitman, a former State Department official who had served as a press officer at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince from 2000 to 2001.
“Still, Gauthier and her husband say they were skeptical. That is, until they spoke with Carolle Tranchant and her husband, Lynn Garrison, a former Canadian Air Force pilot, who convinced them otherwise. ‘Everyone thinks he is CIA,’ Louis Buteau, Gauthier’s husband, told me. In the early 90s, following a coup that ousted the country’s first democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Garrison served as a political advisor to the leader of the military junta that seized power. Though he has previously denied being CIA, he has claimed to have ties with US intelligence agencies and among US politicians. Garrison is credited with being a source for the CIA’s early 90s allegation that Aristide suffered from mental illness.
“Believing this plan might actually be legitimate, the Gauthier's continued to speak with Philippe. He explained that they needed housing in Haiti for the plan, a place where they could hold meetings in confidence. Gauthier reached out to an old friend, Jean Marie Vorbe, whose company, Sogener, had been seized by the government the year prior. Vorbe, like many in the nation’s elite families, had financially backed Moïse’s presidential campaign, but by 2020, with his business gone and his family under threat of further legal issues, that relationship had been completely severed. Vorbe owned the Petit Bois Residences.”
“By then, Sanon had been talking about his connections and support inside the US government for at least two years. He had convinced quite a few. Sanon had been having regular meetings with a group of individuals from various backgrounds, talking about grand plans to redevelop Haiti and restore good governance. Given COVID-19, they were held on Zoom. One frequent attendee, an American woman named Helen Manich, often introduced herself as working for the US government, according to one participant. It wouldn’t have been the first time she had claimed such a tie. Another source, who had known the woman for years, recounted an interaction with her in which she claimed to work for US intelligence.”
02/08/2022, CNN: Haitian Prime Minister involved in planning the President’s assassination, says judge who oversaw case
“Multiple law enforcement sources have told CNN one man lies at the center of much of that obstruction: Ariel Henry. We are not identifying them for security reasons.
“Those sources say they have laid out a series of questionable actions that, they say, detail the Prime Minister’s alleged involvement in the assassination: both in plotting Moïse’s death and in helping orchestrate the subsequent cover-up. And, when two of the top judicial authorities sought potential charges against they were fired.”
04/06/2022, Haiti Liberte: Laundered DR Millions May Reveal Moïse Assassination Authors
“Some $20 million was laundered through Dominican banks to pay for the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse, according to one of the Dominican Republic’s top money-laundering investigators.
“Prominent lawyer Jose Manuel Patin Muñiz, who went to business school in Michigan and was a senior anti-money-laundering compliance officer at Citibank in the U.S., declared on Dominican television that Dominican banks may be sanctioned for facilitating the flow of money without flagging it.”
04/20/2022, Haiti Liberte: Lawyer Newton Saint-Juste Calls Out Anthony Blinken on Moïse Assassination
“On Apr. 18, Haitian lawyer Newton Saint-Juste sent an open letter to U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, calling on him to “clear away all doubt about a possible active or passive involvement of the United States” in the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse.
“Saint-Juste’s pointed request comes on thal the allegation earlier this month that $20 million used to fund the grisly crime was laundered through Dominican banks.”
04/26/2022, Univision: Is there a U.S. intelligence agency link to the assassination of Haiti's president?
“In a court filing, the prosecutor asked the judge to appoint a ‘Classified Information Security Officer’ in its case against Mario Palacios, a former Colombian soldier who was arrested after the assassination.
The request, which was granted by the judge, appears to confirm suspicions regarding some still unclear link between the assassination of president Jovenel Moise and the actions of U.S. government intelligence agents or informants. The court documents do not explain in detail why the protective measure is necessary, or what kind of evidence it might refer to.
‘The government is pretty much telegraphing CIA involvement,’ said Mike Vigil, the former head of operations for the DEA in the Caribbean.
‘The [court] filing once again raises questions about what, precisely, the US has been up to in Haiti, and what information it may have regarding the plot to assassinate the president,’ said Jake Johnston, a Haiti watcher with the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR) in Washington DC. ‘Unfortunately, it appears the public won’t be getting answers anytime soon. With the investigation in Haiti going nowhere, many had been looking to the FBI probe for answers — the filing indicates that nobody should be holding their breath,’ he added.”
“The case involves a Haitian businessman who is also in U.S. custody, Rodolphe Jaar, who is a former DEA informant who spent time in jail for smuggling cocaine. A second DEA informant, Joseph Vincent, is one of three Haitian-Americans who was arrested with the Colombians in Haiti. Another suspect named in a Haitian police investigation into the assassination, Arcangel Pretel, is a former Colombian military trainer who worked closely with anti-narcotics operations in the 1990s at the time of close cooperation between the CIA, the DEA and Colombian forces to bring down the Medellin and Cali cocaine cartels.”
“Usually, the protective order is made to ensure that classified evidence shared with the defense is not made public in court. Sometimes that is done to protect the identities of U.S. government informants. Defense attorneys can be given security clearances in order to view the evidence, or they may receive summaries of it instead. The CIPA rules typically arise in terrorism cases, or when U.S. government informants are caught breaking the law.
“‘It means that there is evidence which includes classified information,’ said Richard Gregorie, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who led several high-profile drug cases involving government informants, such as former Panamanian strongman, General Manuel Antonio Noriega, a former CIA asset who was convicted of drug trafficking in Miami 1991.
“‘The prosecutors are not supposed to deal directly with the CIA, but where a prosecution must disclose classified information which comes from the CIA or directly involves the CIA, there must be protocols that involve CIPA, Classified Information Procedures Act,’ he said.”
05/04/2022, Haiti Liberte: Is the U.S. Covering Up its Role in Moïse’s Murder?
“Haitian lawyer Newton Saint-Juste, who has become a leading legal voice seeking the truth behind Jovenel Moïse’s murder, is disturbed that CIPA has been invoked in this case.
“‘The CIPA request suggests that some people who worked previously or who are currently working for the U.S. government had a role in the assassination of Jovenel Moise,’ Saint-Juste said. ‘It appears that the U.S. knew something or still wants to hide something. What we are looking for is the truth and the masterminds of this assassination.’
“On Apr. 4, Saint-Juste requested the Dominican Attorney General investigate the alleged laundering through Dominican banks of $20 million used for Moïse’s assassination. Then on Apr. 18, he publicly wrote U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, asking him to ‘clear away all doubt about a possible active or passive involvement of the United States’ in the assassination.”
“A former high-ranking Haitian government source, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that Washington’s lack of action against three Florida-based businessmen who are U.S. citizens – Antonio Intriago, Walter Veintemilla, and Arcangel Pretel Ortiz – is very damning. They are the owners of the companies Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) and Worldwide Capital Lending Group — which respectively hired and financed the now-imprisoned Colombian mercenaries who killed Moïse.
“The source also said that Jovenel Moïse’s Jun. 2, 2021 accreditation, one month before his assassination, of a new Russian Ambassador to Haiti, Sergey Melik-Bagdasarov, may have motivated Washington to play a role in the plot or turn a blind eye. Haiti and Russia ‘discussed the prospects for strengthening bilateral relations between the two countries,’ Moïse wrote in a tweet at the time of the credentials ceremony.”
07/05/2022, Miami Herald: ‘A can of worms’: U.S. seeks to keep Moïse assassination suspects’ FBI, DEA ties under wraps
“Some of the suspects allegedly recounted a story about a U.S. government plan to arrest powerful Haitian politicians and businessmen for drug trafficking and money laundering. The supposed plan was allegedly laid out before Reynaldo Corvington, the owner of a security firm, a month before Moïse’s assassination. Corvington’s lawyer, Samuel Madistin, described the alleged meeting in a five-page letter last summer after his client was arrested in the plot along with his son-in-law.”
“A Colombian, Pretel lived in Miami, went by the name ‘Gabriel Perez’ and bragged often about his U.S. government connections. According to Haitian police report, Pretel claimed to have made several trips to New York and Washington ‘where he met several executives of the American government with the aim of a political transition in Haiti with Christian Emmanuel Sanon.’ In a 2015 letter about a U.S. extradition case out of Colombia, Pretel was identified as a confidential FBI informant in a 2015 New York federal drug indictment and accused of carrying out ‘a judicial set-up.’”
07/06/2022, New York Times: A Year Since a President’s Murder, Haitians Keep Waiting to Hit Rock Bottom
“And a key suspect in the assassination — Prime Minister Ariel Henry of Haiti — fired government officials who summoned him for questioning in the case. Phone records indicate Mr. Henry had spoken with the man accused of masterminding the assassination, Joseph Felix Badio, a former justice ministry official, in the days leading to and hours after Mr. Moïse’s death. The prime minister has denied wrongdoing and Mr. Badio remains free.
“A separate United States government-led probe has also yielded no answers and instead raised suspicions of a link between the assassins and American intelligence agencies, including the C.I.A. A chief suspect in the case, Mario Palacios, a former Colombian soldier, was extradited to Florida in January to stand trial.”
“The Drug Enforcement Administration has refused to answer questions regarding several of the Haitian suspects in the case who have served as agency informants. In May, the Senate Judiciary Committee rebuked the D.E.A. for failing to respond to queries regarding its conduct in Haiti.”
10/7/2022, Guardian: Haiti government prepares to ask for ‘specialized armed force’ from abroad
“Haiti’s government hzed the prime minister, Ariel Henry, to ask the international community for a ‘specialized armed force’ to address a crisis caused by a blockade of the country’s main fuel port that has led to crippling shortages, according to a decree circulating on Friday.”
10/12/2022, Miami Herald: If not the U.S., then who? Biden team says talk of U.S. troop deployment to Haiti ‘premature’
“Ever since the assassination of Haiti’s president last summer, the Biden administration has been planning for the possibility of the country’s potential collapse. The Department of Homeland Security has quietly readied for an unprecedented flow of refugees across the Florida Straits. And the Pentagon has gamed out what it would do if heavily armed gangs took control of the country’s seaports and fuel depots, triggering a grave humanitarian and security crisis.”
“On Sunday, Haitian activists protested in front of the White House saying they oppose foreign intervention and demanding that the U.S. withdraw its support for Prime Minister Ariel Henry. In Haiti, critics of Henry have also taken the same anti-intervention stance, while others trapped in the ongoing desperate situation, including exasperated police officers, are asking when will the troops arrive.”
Since the 1990s there have been several foreign interventions in Haiti, with the U.S., joined by Canada and France, leading the way ahead of a multinational force. The last U.N. stabilization mission had a sizable Latin American contingent, with Chile and Brazil taking the lead after the U.S. stepped back.”
10/14/2022, The Hill: Haiti gang makes demands in test of power with government
10/15/2022, Washington Post: U.S. backs sending international forces to Haiti, draft proposal says
“The United States has drafted a United Nations Security Council resolution encouraging ‘the immediate deployment of a multinational rapid action force’ to Haiti in response to the rapidly deteriorating security and humanitarian situation there, according to a copy of the resolution obtained by The Washington Post.
“The drafting of the resolution follows a push by U.N. Secretary General António Guterres for the creation of an international force to bolster the Haitian National Police as powerful armed gangs destabilize the country, disrupting the supply of fuel and electricity to the impoverished Caribbean nation.”
10/15/2022, Oxford Mail: UN warns millions in Haiti facing acute hunger
“A record 4.7 million people in Haiti are facing acute hunger, including 19,000 in catastrophic famine conditions for the first time, all in slums controlled by gangs in the capital, according to a UN report.”
10/16/2022, Reuters: U.S., Canada deliver armored vehicles to Haitian police to fight gangs
“The United States and Canada stepped in to transport the Haitian government-purchased equipment when the company faced delivery delays, a State Department spokesperson said, adding that Washington would continue efforts to strengthen the Haitian police.
“The U.N. Security Council is considering creating a sanctions regime to impose an asset freeze, travel ban and arms embargo on anyone who threatens the peace, security or stability of Haiti, according to a draft resolution seen by Reuters on Thursday.”
10/17/2022, Guardian: US and Mexico call for international force to break gangs’ stranglehold on Haiti
“The US and Mexico have proposed the deployment of a multinational force in Haiti to help break the stranglehold of gangs over the distribution of fuel, water and other basic goods.
“Presenting a resolution at a special session of the UN security council on Monday, the US envoy to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called for ‘a limited carefully-scoped non-UN mission led by a partner country with the deep, necessary experience’.”
10/17/2022, PBS: Thousands protest in Haiti as UN discusses troop request
“U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield made the announcement at an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council as thousands across Haiti organized protests demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. The demonstrations came on the day the country commemorated the death of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, a slave who became the leader of the world’s first Black republic.”
Historical context
Here I compile some articles examining previous covert US intelligence involvement in Haiti that may provide useful context for understanding Moïse’s assassination.
11/14/1993, New York Times: C.I.A. Formed Haitian Unit Later Tied to Narcotics Trade
“The Central Intelligence Agency created an intelligence service in Haiti in the mid-1980's to fight the cocaine trade, but the unit evolved into an instrument of political terror whose officers at times engaged in drug trafficking, American and Haitian officials say.
“American officials say the C.I.A. cut its ties to the Haitian organization shortly after the 1991 military coup against Haiti's first democratically elected President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.”
“The disclosure of the American role in creating the agency in 1986 comes amid increasing Congressional and public debate about the intelligence relationship between the United States and Haiti, the richest and poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere.
“Supporters of Father Aristide contend that the C.I.A. is undermining the chances for his return with analyses skewed by a misplaced trust in his military foes.
“The agency paid key members of the junta now in power for political and military information up until the ouster of Father Aristide in 1991. A review of the C.I.A.'s activities in Haiti under the Reagan and Bush Administrations, based on documents and interviews with current and former officials, confirms that senior C.I.A. officers have long been deeply skeptical about the stability and politics of President Aristide, a leftist priest.”
“Having created the Haitian intelligence service, the agency failed to insure that several million dollars spent training and equipping the service from 1986 to 1991 was actually used in the war on drugs. The unit produced little narcotics intelligence. Senior members committed acts of political terror against Aristide supporters, including interrogations that included torture, and threatened last year to kill the local chief of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration.”
“The C.I.A. also had a mixed track record in analyzing the fall of the 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1986. The agency's analysts did not foresee the political violence that led to the collapse of elections in 1987 and the 1991 coup. But the analysts, contradicting the White House and the State Department, correctly predicted this year that the Haitian military would block President Aristide's scheduled return in October.”
“In 1957, Francois Duvalier rose to power in Haiti. A corrupt dictator, he consolidated his power with the aid of a 10,000-member gang known as the Tontons Macoute.
“Four years later, he was threatened by a C.I.A. covert operation in which the agency supplied arms to opponents plotting a coup, according to a 1975 Senate report. The plot failed.
“On his death in 1971, Mr. Duvalier bequeathed his regime to his son, Jean-Claude, who received nearly $400 million in American economic aid until a popular revolt toppled his Government and he fled the country in February 1986.
“Shortly afterward the C.I.A. created the Haitian intelligence service, S.I.N. The agency was staffed solely with officers of the Haitian Army, which was already widely perceived as an unprofessional force with a tendency toward corruption. The stated purpose was to stem the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of cocaine through Haiti, a crucial transit point for drug traffickers.”
04/?/1994, The Village Sun: Haiti’s nightmare: The Cocaine Coup and the C.I.A. connection:
“In a dramatic move, Aristide told the diplomats that the military government of Haiti had to yield the power that was to end Haiti’s role in the drug trade, a trade financed by Colombia’s Cali cartel, that had exploded in the months following the coup.
“Aristide told the U.N. that each year Haiti is the transit point for nearly 50 tons of cocaine worth more than a billion dollars, providing Haiti’s military rulers with $200 million in profits.”
“The U.S. Senate also heard testimony in 1988 that Haiti’s then-interior minister, Gen. Williams Regala, and his D.E.A. liaison officer protected and supervised cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then-Haitian military commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers in return for landing rights in the mid-1980s.”
“It was in 1989 that yet another military coup brought Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril to power. Under U.S. pressure, Avril, the former finance chief under Haiti’s 30-year Duvalier family dictatorship, fired 140 officers suspected of drug trafficking. Avril, who is currently living in Miami, is being sued by six Haitians, including Port-au-Prince Mayor Evans Paul, who claim they were abducted and tortured by the Haitian military under Avril’s orders in November 1989.
“According to a witness before Senator John Kerry’s subcommittee, Avril is in fact a major player in Haiti’s role as a transit point in the cocaine trade.
“Four years later, on the eve of Aristide’s negotiated return as Haiti’s elected president, a summary of a confidential report prepared for Congress and leaked to the media says that ‘corruption levels within the [Haitian military-run] narcotics service are substantial enough to hamper any significant investigation attempting to dismantle a Colombian organization in Haiti.’”
“But the most disturbing allegations have been of the role played by the C.I.A. in keeping many of the coup leaders on the agency’s payroll, as part of an anti-drug intelligence unit set up by the U.S. in Haiti in 1986. Many of these same military men have had their U.S. assets frozen, and are prevented from entering this country because of their role in overthrowing Aristide, and subsequent human-rights violations, including torture and murders of political opponents, raising the question — was the U.S. involved in a cocaine coup that overthrew Aristide?”
“As Jesse Helms was using the C.I.A. to slag Aristide in the media, an intelligence service in Haiti set up by the agency to battle the cocaine trade, had evolved into a gang of political terrorists and drug traffickers. Three former chiefs of the Haitian National Intelligence Service (N.I.S.) are now on the list of 41 Haitian officials whose assets in the United States were frozen for supporting the military coup.”
“The C.I.A. poured millions into the N.I.S., from its founding in 1986 to the 1991 coup. A 1992 D.E.A. document describes the N.I.S. as “a covert counter-narcotics intelligence unit which often works in unison with the C.I.A.” Although most of the C.I.A.’s activities in Haiti remain secret, U.S. officials accuse some N.I.S. members of becoming ‘enmeshed’ in the drug trade. A U.S. embassy official in Haiti told The New York Times that the N.I.S. ‘was a military organization that distributed drugs in Haiti.’
“Aristide’s exiled interior minister Patrick Elie says the relationship between the C.I.A. and N.I.S. involves more than drugs. Elie told investigative reporter Dennis Bernstein that ‘the N.I.S. was created by the C.I.A.’ Created, Elie says, to ‘infiltrate the drug network.’ But Elie adds, the N.I.S., which is staffed entirely by the Haitian military, spends most of its resources in ‘political repression and spying on Haitians.’”
10/08/1994, New York Times: A HAITIAN LEADER OF PARAMILITARIES WAS PAID BY C.I.A.
“The leader of one of Haiti's most infamous paramilitary groups was a paid informer of the Central Intelligence Agency for two years and was receiving money from the United States while his associates committed political murders and other acts of repression, Government officials said today.
“Emmanuel (Toto) Constant, the head of the organization known as Fraph, was on the C.I.A.'s payroll in October 1993, when his group organized a violent demonstration that prevented the docking of the Navy ship Harlan County, the officials said.”
“It was not clear why the payments to Mr. Constant continued after his group had played the leading role in temporarily derailing the Clinton Administration's policy toward Haiti.”
“The Clinton Administration has vehemently denied providing aid or support to Fraph, which has been implicated in human rights abuses since the September 1991 coup against Father Aristide. Several Government officials said the payments to Mr. Constant were small and were part of a continuing effort to gather information from all ends of the Haitian political spectrum.”
“In the Nation article, Mr. Constant was quoted as saying he was encouraged to form Fraph by Col. Patrick Collins, an American military officer who served as defense attache at the United States Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Mr. Constant also charged that Colonel Collins and the C.I.A. station chief were inside the headquarters of the Haitian military when the anti-Aristide coup unfolded in 1991.”
10/16/1994, Newsweek: We'll Hunt You Down Like A Dog
“Constant, according to U.S. intelligence sources, was a paid CIA informer from 1987 until last spring, despite allegations that he is a major drug smuggler. Even [former Haiti Chief of National Police and 1991 coup participant Michel] Francois, who left Haiti denouncing Cedras for betraying the country to the Americans, has reportedly been a paid CIA asset; his brother Evans Francois, according to NEWSWEEK'S sources, has been on the payroll for years.”
1996, Southwestern Journal of Law & Trade in the Americas: SIN, FRAPH, AND THE CIA: U.S. COVERT ACTION IN HAITI
“The United States Central Intelligence Agency has undertaken
secret interventions for almost forty years in Haiti, the poorest country
in the Western Hemisphere. The CIA has provided training,
funds, and equipment to the corrupt Haitian military; created SIN, a
Haitian intelligence service that engaged in drug trafficking and political
violence; investigated and falsely reported about the democratically-
elected Haitian President; financially supported and protected
individuals and groups responsible for the 1991 military coup and its
aftermath, including FRAPH, the violent paramilitary group that is
responsible for thousands of human rights violations; and intervened
in the UN mission established to reinstate the legitimate government
in Haiti.”
01/08/1996, The Nation: 'Haiti Under the Gun': Covert US Ties to Haitian Rebels Date from the '90s
“In the face of rising outrage in Haiti that paramilitaries are still armed and at large, the U.S. government has again denied collaborating with the perpetrators, including FRAPH, the hit squad whose leader, Emmanual Constant, worked for the C.I.A. But evidence just discovered indicates that, starting in mid-1993, FRAPH was launched on its reign of terror with secret shipments of U.S. arms, and that still-active FRAPH members have been used recently in U.S. occupation operations, sprung from hail with Wahington's help.”
“This information comes from interviews in Haiti and the United States with military, paramilitary and intelligence officials, including Green Beret commanders and also from internal documents from the US and Haitian armies. Pieces of the story also come from Constant himself, who called me from his Maryland jail cell last September and again on December 7, shortly before he was due to be deported to Haiti. Constant, who has said that he started the group that became FRAPH at the urging of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) -- an account confirmed last year by a US official who worked with him -- now says that even after the U.S. occupation got under way in September 1994, ‘other people from my organization were working with the DIA,’ aiding in operations directed against ‘subversive activities.’ Constant claims that US forces still use FRAPH members for ‘crowd control’ and also ‘to understand the neighborhoods, what Lavalas [the political movement of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide] is doing.’“
02/26/1996, The Nation: Haiti Under Cloak
“The C.I.A. has placed agents within the rebuilt Haitian National Police, where, according to the transition chief for president-elect Rene Preval, they operate outside the control of the legal Haitian government. In an interview nine days before Preval's scheduled inauguration, the transition chief, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, told The Nation: ‘The C.I.A. is present within the police. It is present in all parts. But what their plan is-I don't have it.’
“His statement has been confirmed by U.S. officials familiar with the operation, who say that much of the C.I.A. recruitment took place during the F.B.I.'s International Criminal Investigations Training Assistance Program (ICITAP) police training, which was done last year at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, at the insistence of the Clinton White House and over initial objections from the Aristide government.”
03/31/1996, Washington Post, OUR HIDDEN HAITIAN PROBLEM
"‘Repression works,’ John Kambourian, the CIA station chief from 1992 to 1994, told an acquaintance of mine, a businessman in Haiti, early in 1993. ‘It worked in Russia for 40 years.’ When I related this conversation to a State Department official who worked closely with Kambourian throughout the Haiti crisis, he said ‘That sounds exactly like Kambourian.’ Another U.S. official who spoke to Kambourian says he absolutely denies ever having made such a remark. If this is Kambourian's view, it was, and is, problematic, to say the least. Repression, of course, does work -- at the expense of the rule of law, innocent lives and freedom, repression can create order and wealth for the privileged few and misery for everyone else.”
“After arriving at his post in 1992, John Kambourian embarked on an anti-Aristide spree, launching a smear campaign focused on the president-in-exile's mental health. According to Allan Nairn's reports in The Nation, Kambourian vowed to associates among the Haitian military and oligarchy that Aristide would never again set foot on the island and, most damagingly, functioning as one of the behind-the-scenes architects of FRAPH, the paramilitary terrorist organization.”
02/26/2004, Democracy Now: Haiti: Different Coup, Same Paramilitary Leaders
“And Constant was later placed on the CIA payroll. He received cash payments from John Kambourian, the CIA Station Chief. Also one of the key leaders of the coup that ousted Aristide from his democratically elected presidency, the first time around, Michelle Francois, was also on the payroll according to a CIA — the CIA payroll according to a US State Department official I interviewed.”
“JUAN GONZALEZ: Alan, you mentioned John Kambourian, the former CIA Station Chief, but I recall being back in the early 1990’s in Haiti covering the events. I will never forget the day before the U.S.S. Harlan County, which President Clinton and the U.N. were sending in peacekeepers in the fall of 1993 and I happened to be with the daily news reporter at a restaurant in Patienville with some of the top anti-Aristide elite there, including the number two person in the port, who assured me, and our reporter, and my photographer that the Harlan County was not going to land next day, that everything had been arranged. I told him, ‘What do you mean? President Clinton is sending them in.’ And as we were sitting there in the restaurant in walks John Kambourian and sits down at our table and begins to huddle with the number two man at the port and various other officials. The next morning, sure enough as the business people had predicted, ______ was stopped and blocked at the gate by a FRAPH crew and there’s John Kambourian, serenely watching the whole situation unfold. I bumped into him on a plane ride a few weeks later, and I said, ‘Weren’t you worried about these FRAPH people.’ And he said, ‘Oh, They don’t mean any harm, they’re harmless.’ So it was clear that he was well aware of everything that was going on with the attempt to push back the Harlan County that day.”
“ALLAN NAIRN: Well, FRAPH was involved in hundreds, perhaps thousands, of murders of civilians. At one point, they set fire to the “Fite Solil” neighborhood of Port-Au-Prince. It’s an undisputed fact that they were launched by US Intelligence. Clinton’s Secretary of State, Warren Christopher, confirmed that fact after the initial report came out. Constant, I had several interviews with Constant and also with Colonel Collins, and the US obviously doesn’t want that fact and that relationship gone into. After the US military came in and occupied Haiti, they seized the files, the archives of FRAPH, and the police, and the Haitian military, and they have kept them. And Haitian prosecutors and investigators who wanted to probe the terrorist acts by these forces haven’t been able to get the access they should. And Constant has, in essence, been given a sanctuary in the United States.”
01/26/2016, The Nation: Sure, Washington Has Always Supported Democracy In Haiti
“The first-round vote, last October, was so marred by fraud, corruption, and violence that all other candidates, save Washington’s favored and handpicked successor to the current president, Michel Martelly—Jovenel Moïse—were boycotting the second runoff round.
“In other words, the runoff had only one candidate: Washington’s. For months, the Obama administration insisted that the runoff take place, working hard to discredit the fraud charges. The goal of the United States, the State Department said in a ‘Fact Sheet’ updated just last week as street protests were gaining force, was ‘credible, inclusive, and legitimate elections that genuinely reflect the will of the Haitian people.’
“Martelly—who was also installed by Washington in rigged elections in 2010—wants his would-be successor Moïse to complete the Duvalierist-death-squad restoration, which has been underway since the country’s devastating 2010 earthquake. A key supporter of Moïse (and hence de facto ally of the White House) is Guy Philippe. Philippe has all the right qualifications to serve as Washington’s man in Haiti. He has deep ties to paramilitaries and is wanted (but somehow never captured) by the Drug Enforcement Administration for drug running and money laundering. In 2004, he helped the George W. Bush administration (via the International Republican Institute, a public-private organization that receives its funding from both the US government and corporations like Halliburton and Chevron) to overthrow Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. (At the time, Jeffrey Sachs was offering some of the best analysis of the motives for that coup, writing that Bush came into office hoping to oust Aristide).
“Now, Philippe, himself running for a seat in parliament, is calling for a civil war against the “anarchists of Port-au-Prince”—by which he means the coalition (including Aristide’s old political party, Fanmi Lavalas) that has demanded that Martelly step down as scheduled in early February and that new elections be held. Philippe’s threatening to lead his regional stronghold, Grand’Anse, in a breakaway separatist movement.”
12/08/2020, Haiti Liberte: Loyal to Washington, New Police Chief Léon Charles Specializes in Counter-Insurgency Intelligence Gathering and Repression
“His 17-month tenure as HNP chief from March 2004 (after the second coup d’état against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29) until July 2005 was marked by widespread corruption and deadly repression of a fierce popular resistance movement against the U.S.-backed overthrow and the ensuing foreign military intervention – first by U.S., French, and Canadian soldiers and then by UN troops – that would last for almost 16 years.
“On Nov. 16, 2020, Léon Charles again took the reins at the HNP, after President Jovenel Moïse recalled him from Washington, where he had risen to the post of Alternate Haitian Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS). Outgoing chief Normil Rameau had been appointed only 15 months earlier. An HNP chief’s term is usually three years.”
“The SIU, which helped establish such ‘targeting’ in Cité Soleil, is being resurrected today, just as Léon Charles returns to the HNP. On Nov. 26, 2020, President Jovenel Moïse unilaterally decreed the formation of a new “National Intelligence Agency” or ANI. (This year, Moïse has been ruling by decree because he refused to organize elections and allowed Parliament to expire on Jan. 13, 2020.)
“The new agency’s mission, announced in an unusually large 24-page edition of the government’s journal of record Le Moniteur, is ‘to collect and treat information concerning national security… [and] strengthen interior and exterior security… [by] preventing and repressing acts of terrorism and sectarian excesses… [which] undermine state security.’”
“The ANI will ‘receive and carry out the mandate to investigate for justice, apprehend the persons wanted by the judicial authority, and bring them before the competent authorities.’
“In short, this secret agency’s completely anonymous officers (Article 43) will have false identities (Article 44), carry guns (Article 51), be legally untouchable (Article 49), and have the power not just to spy and infiltrate but to arrest anybody engaged in “subversive” acts (Article 29) or threatening ‘state security’ i.e. the power of President Jovenel Moïse.”
“Perhaps the most direct inspiration for the ANI was the National Intelligence Service (SIN), formed and funded with up to $1 million yearly by the CIA after the 1986 overthrow of Jean-Claude Duvalier, at the peak of the anti-Duvalierist movement which drove the dictator from power. Run by FAdH officers, the SIN ‘engaged in drug trafficking and political violence,’ explained Kathleen Marie Whitney in a 1996 article, SIN, FRAPH, and the CIA: U.S. Covert Action in Haiti in the Southwestern Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas. She found that the group produced no intelligence and instead used their training against political opponents.”
“Col. Patrick Collins, the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) attaché in Haiti, first approached Constant while he ‘was teaching a training course at the headquarters of the CIA-run National Intelligence Service (SIN) and building a computer database for Haiti’s notorious rural Section Chiefs at the Bureau of Information and Coordination in the General Headquarters of the Haitian coup regime,’ Nairn explained. ‘Constant said that Collins began pushing him to organize a front ‘that could balance the Aristide movement’ and do ‘intelligence’ work against it. He said that their discussions had begun soon after Aristide fell in September 1991. They resulted in Constant forming what later evolved into the FRAPH, a group that was known initially as the Haitian Resistance League.’
“The FRAPH would later significantly contribute to the murder, massacre, rape, and disappearances of about 5,000 Haitians during the military coup that lasted from 1991 to 1994. Meanwhile, according to Whitney, the SIN itself murdered up to 5,000 members of democratic movements from 1986 to 1991.”
05/20/2022, New York Times: Demanding Reparations, and Ending Up in Exile Demanding Reparations, and Ending Up in Exile
“To this day, many French and American officials maintain that Mr. Aristide resigned to prevent the political crisis upending Haiti from escalating into civil war. Armed rebels were closing in on Port-au-Prince. France had publicly urged Mr. Aristide to step down, while the United States had strongly hinted at it.
“Mr. Moreno said Mr. Aristide’s departure ‘was all at his behest and that he ‘wanted to avoid a bloodshed.’
“But Mr. Aristide’s resignation letter was written in Haitian Creole, and debates over the proper translation continue to this day. Mr. Burkard, the former ambassador at the time, said that the letter was ‘ambiguous,’ and that the wording did not exactly point to a resignation.
“He also acknowledged, for the first time, that France and the United States had effectively orchestrated ‘a coup’ against Mr. Aristide by pressuring him to step down and taking him into exile. Another former French ambassador to Haiti, Philippe Selz, a member of the French commission to Haiti, said in an interview that the decision had been made in advance ‘to extradite the president, to send him away.’”
07/15/2022, The Grayzone: US intel officer targeted by John Bolton reacts to coup-plot confession
[Former CIA officer in Haiti Fulton Armstrong:] “It’s ironic that somebody would accuse somebody like me of supporting Jean-Bertrand Aristide because it was actually a Daddy Bush—a George H.W. Bush—policy to restore Aristide after the coup, which Bill Clinton took on, and very patiently and in a bloodless so-called invasion wound up restoring the man and tried to establish a particular relationship. It became a very partisan issue here in Washington where there were many Republicans who felt that this was an issue that they could use to undermine President Clinton. And I wouldn’t defend every aspect of Haiti policy at that time, but one of the ways to do it was—and there’s stuff that still needs to be written about all of this, stuff that I can’t at this point divulge about the agency’s relationship with certain people whose primary purpose was to overthrow Aristide and lay the groundwork, even if they weren’t the ones that later pulled the trigger and forced the man out of the country. But, yes, the US government was quite deeply involved in that second coup, which is hugely ironic because it was basically a Daddy Bush policy to restore the man.”
there's also the BASELESS conspiracy theory angle here which (if you just try and google Pres. Moise's position on vaccines) results in naught but FACTCHECKS. Haiti and several other countries were the last holdouts on the covid "vaccine" rollout. Pres. Joseph was in office post-assassination July 7-20, which coincides w/ the USCG delivery of vaccine July 14, a "bright spot" in the tumultuous times in Haiti.