Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti: Difference between revisions

The '''Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH)''' ({{lang-fr|Front pour l'Avancement et le Progrès Haitien}}) was a [[far-right]]<ref>{{cite news|url=httphttps://www.nytimes.com/1994/01/21/world/gonaives-journal-the-bogeyman-s-back-striking-fear-into-haitians.html|title=Gonaives Journal; The Bogeyman's Back, Striking Fear Into Haitians | work=The New York Times | first=Howard W. | last=French | date=1994-01-21 | accessdate=2010-05-03}}</ref>

paramilitary group organized in mid-1993. Its goal was to undermine support for the popular [[Catholicism|Catholic]] priest [[Jean-Bertrand Aristide]], who served less than eight months as [[Haiti|Haïti's]] president before being deposed, on 29 September 1991, by a [[coup d'état|coup]]. The group received covert support and funding from the United States government.

FRAPH was established by [[Emmanuel Constant|Emmanuel "Toto" Constant]], who went on the [[Central Intelligence Agency]] payroll as an informant and spy in early 1992 (according to the Agency, this relationship ended in mid-1994, but the following October the US embassy in Haïti was openly acknowledging that Constant &ndash;– now a born-again democrat &ndash;– was on its payroll). According to Constant, shortly after Aristide's ouster, Colonel [[Patrick Collins]], a U.S. [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA), attache who was stationed in Haiti from 1989 to 1992, pressured him to organize a front that could oppose the Aristide movement and do intelligence work against it (it is believed that members of FRAPH were working, and perhaps still are, for two social service agencies funded by the [[US Agency for International Development]], one of which maintains sensitive files on the popular [[social movement]]s of the Haïtian poor). <ref>[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Blum/Haiti_KH.html Haiti 1986-94 KH Blum<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

:"[USAID] is providing funding and technical assistance to strengthen Haiti’s judicial system, yet the U.S. has refused HaïtianHaitian government requests to deport FRAPH leader Constant, who was imprisoned in the U.S. and wanted in HaïtiHaiti on murder charges. Instead, the U.S. Justice Department released him from prison. Furthermore, the Clinton administration refuses to give the HaïtianHaitian government uncensored copies of the documents seized from FRAPH headquarters, raising suspicions that the documents contain incriminating information about CIA and other U.S. collaboration with HaïtianHaitian paramilitaries. Documents that were obtained revealed, for example, that the CIA knew that Constant was directly implicated in the 1993 murder of Justice Minister Guy Malory, yet kept him on their payroll until the return of Aristide in 1994."<ref>[http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol2/v2n3hai_body.html U.S. Policy in Haiti<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050713205341/http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol2/v2n3hai_body.html |date=2005-07-13 }}</ref>

It subsequently emerged that the US government had in fact played a significant role in establishing and funding FRAPH. The investigative journalist [[Allan Nairn]] broke the story in an article published in ''[[The Nation (U.S. periodical)|The Nation]]'' in 1994.<ref>[http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1994/165/165p21b.htm Green Left -– CIA linked to FRAPH, coup<!-- Bot generated title -->] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050207184539/http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/1994/165/165p21b.htm |date=2005-02-07 }}</ref> Nairn based his findings on interviews with military, paramilitary and intelligence officials in Haïti and the United States as well as Green Beret commanders and internal documents from the U.S. and HaïtianHaitian armies. Nairn spoke directly with Constant himself, then being held in a Maryland jail, shortly before he was due to be deported to Haïti. According to Constant, he started the group that became FRAPH at the urging of the [[Defense Intelligence Agency]] (DIA), and that even after the U.S. occupation got under way in September 1994, "other people from [his] organization were working with the DIA", aiding in operations directed against "subversive activities".<ref>[http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Foreign_Policy/HaitiJan96_Nairn.html Nation 1/96 Haiti Nairn<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

:"they were talking out of both sides of their mouth. They were talking about restoring democracy to Haïti, but at the same time, they were undermining democracy in the coup period --– at times supporting a group that committed terrorist acts against the HaïtianHaitian people."<ref name=autogenerated1>[http://www.williambowles.info/haiti-news/archives/rights_070296.html Haiti Archives<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

According to Ratner, U.S. suspicions of Aristide’sAristide's leftist populism prodded them to seek support from even the most brutal anti-Aristide elements. Observers such as Ratner, Nairn and Lisa McGowan have argued that covert assistance to antidemocratic forces such as FRAPH was used to pressure ArisideAristide into abandoning his ambitious program for social reform and adopt harsh economic reforms when the U.S. returned him to power.

*Grann, David. [https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2001/06/giving-the-devil-his-due/302234/ "Giving 'The Devil' His Due."] ''The Atlantic Monthly'', June 2001.

*Whitney, Kathleen Marie (1996), "Sin, Fraph, and the CIA: U.S. Covert Action in Haiti", ''Southwestern Journal of Law and Trade in the Americas'', Vol. 3, Issue 2 (1996), pp. 303-332 303–332.

*[httphttps://www.hrw.org/campaigns/bush2001/key-countries.htm#haiti Human Rights Watch article on FRAPH]

*[httphttps://googleweb.comarchive.org/search?q=cache:dJyN8r7tpY0Jweb/20101205233613/http://www.amnesty.ca/amnestynews/upload/AMR3601304.pdf+FRAPH+%22Amnesty+International&hl=en Amnesty International article on FRAPH]

[[Category:HistoryParamilitary oforganizations based in Haiti]]