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{{Short description|Paramilitary group organized in 1993}}
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.
 
==The formation of FRAPH==
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 – now a born-again democrat – 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.
 
==U.S. involvement in Haiti==
During the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign, candidate [[Bill Clinton]] had promised to restore democracy to Haiti if elected. Inaugurated in 1993, the administration had to deal with a continuing refugee problem in [[Florida]]. Condemning FRAPH and the military regime as nothing more than "armed thugs," the administration cooperated with a multinational force and dispatched 15,000 troops sent and a high-level negotiating team ([[Jimmy Carter]], [[Sam Nunn]], and [[Colin Powell]]) to force the military to step down, restoring Aristide to power in August 1994 after international sanctions and pressure had failed to produce any results. Although the presence of U.S. and UN peacekeepers helped restore calm and security, this success, claims researcher Lisa A. McGowan, was undermined by their refusal to disarm the disbanded Haitian military and paramilitaries. As McGowan wrote,
 
:"[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".
 
In February 1996, the New York-based [[Center for Constitutional Rights]] (CCR) announced that it had obtained thousands of pages of newly declassified U.S. documents, which they claim revealed that the U.S. government recognized the brutal nature of FRAPH but denied it in public. Describing the attitude of US government officials, CCR lawyer Michael Ratner said
 
:"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."
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.
 
According to Bill O'Neil, consultant for the New York-based National Coalition for Haïtian Rights, though the CIA and the Pentagon encouraged FRAPH early on, "within a few weeks or a few months, [U.S. support] was largely jettisoned." O'Neil, though, expressed concern that the U.S.'s reluctance to completely sever relations with FRAPH until 1995 (when Constant was arrested) may have allowed several high-profile figures to go into hiding.<ref name=autogenerated1>[http://www.williambowles.info/haiti-news/archives/rights_070296.html Haiti Archives<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>
 
==References==
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==Bibliography==
*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.
 
==External links==
*[httphttps://www.hrw.org/campaigns/bush2001/key-countries.htm#haiti Human Rights Watch article on FRAPH]
*[httphttps://web.archive.org/web/20101205233613/http://www.amnesty.ca/amnestynews/upload/AMR3601304.pdf Amnesty International article on FRAPH]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20050507035655/http://www.zmag.org/zmag/articles/june95arnove.htm Allan Nairn discusses Haiti], an interview by [[Anthony Arnove]], ''[[Z Magazine]]'', June 1995
 
 
{{DEFAULTSORT:Front For The Advancement And Progress Of Haiti}}
[[Category:HistoryParamilitary oforganizations based in Haiti]]
[[Category:Far-right politics in North America]]
[[Category:1993 establishments in Haiti]]
[[Category:Haiti–United States relations]]
[[Category:Human rights in Haiti]]