2004 Haitian coup d'état

A coup d'état in Haiti on 29 February 2004, following several weeks of conflict, resulted in the removal of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office. On 5 February, a rebel group, called the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation and Reconstruction of Haiti, took control of Haiti's fourth-largest city, Gonaïves. By 22 February, the rebels had captured Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haïtien and were besieging the capital, Port-au-Prince by the end of February. On the morning of 29 February, Aristide resigned under controversial circumstances and was flown from Haiti by U.S. military and security personnel. He went into exile, being flown directly to the Central African Republic, before eventually settling in South Africa. In 2022, a dozen Haitian and French officials told The New York Times that Aristide's earlier calls for reparations had caused France to side with Aristide's opponents and collaborate with the United States to remove him from power. This claim was, however, denied by the United States Ambassador to Haiti at the time, James Brendan Foley. However, the opposition in Haiti accused FL and the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) of election fraud, and later so did Europe and the United States. U.S. Congressman John Conyers wrote:

The Senate vote tabulation has been described as a small technicality that would not have changed the outcome of those races, but it turned into an international controversy.

In response to this controversy, in September 2000 the U.S. and Canada decided to not provide any assistance for the presidential election. Aristide met with U.S. National Security Advisor Anthony Lake and reached an agreement to hold Senate run-off elections, and to appoint a cabinet and an election council that included the opposition. The plan was later endorsed by the George W. Bush administration and the OAS. Although the Aristide government took measures to implement the agreement, the opposition represented by CD refused to participate in the process, and it had allies in the U.S. Congress. Journalist Michel Vastel leaked information about the conference that he says was told to him by his friend and conference host Denis Paradis, Canada's Secretary of State for Latin America, Africa, and the French-speaking world, in his 15 March 2003, article in Quebec news magazine L'actualité. In the article, he claims that the officials at the conference wanted to see regime change in Haiti in less than a year. "Michel Vastel wrote that the possibility of Aristide's departure, the need for a potential trusteeship over Haiti, and the return of Haiti's dreaded military were discussed by Paradis and the French Minister for La Francophonie, Pierre-André Wiltzer." Paradis later denied this, but neither Vastel nor L'actualite retracted the story.

CD continued refusing to cooperate and demanded the resignation of Aristide right up until the coup, and some donors, such as the EU, continued blocking foreign aid over the election dispute despite worsening economic conditions in Haiti. At the same time, the government, which faced growing protests during 2003, used street gangs to attack the demonstrators. The Haitian National Police (PNH) was accused of human rights abuses and of being biased in the political dispute. Multiple protests by Haitian students were organized in 2002, 2003 and 2004 against the Aristide government. On 5 December 2003, some of Aristide's supporters, backed by the police according to witnesses, entered the social studies department of the Université d'État d'Haïti to attack students who were rallying for an anti-government protest later that day. Dozens of students were injured and the University dean had his legs broken. This event led to more protests by students, eventually joined by other groups. A student protest against Aristide on 7 January 2004 led to a clash with police and Aristide supporters that left two dead.

Aristide's request for reparations and other policies

In 2003, Aristide requested that France pay Haiti over US$21 billion in reparations, which he said was the equivalent in today's money Haiti was forced to pay Paris after winning independence from France 200 years ago.

The United Nations Security Council, of which France is a permanent member, rejected a 26 February 2004, appeal from the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) for international peacekeeping forces to be sent into its member state Haiti, but voted unanimously to send in troops three days later, just hours after Aristide's forced resignation.

"I believe that (the call for reparations) could have something to do with it, because they (France) were definitely not happy about it, and made some very hostile comments," Myrtha Desulme, chairperson of the Haiti-Jamaica Exchange Committee, told IPS. "(But) I believe that he did have grounds for that demand, because that is what started the downfall of Haiti," she says."

During Aristide's second administration in 2003, he doubled the minimum wage, which impacted over 20,000 people who worked in the Port-au-Prince assembly sector. Furthermore, the Aristide government launched a campaign to collect unpaid taxes and utility bills from Haiti’s wealthy population, seeking to reign in the business elite; such developments deeply unsettled the country’s aristocracy.

Following the 2004 Haitian coup d'état, the appointed provisional prime minister Gerard Latortue rescinded the reparations demand. One of their leaders was Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a founder of the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti (FRAPH), who was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the murder of the activist Antoine Izmery in 1993. The Haitian police became incompetent and corrupt, and some of its members were involved in drug trafficking. Aristide also used gangs against his opponents, and allowed former Duvalierist Tonton Macoutes paramilitary members to join both them and the PNH.

Coup d'état

In September 2003, Amiot Métayer was found dead, his eyes shot out and his heart cut out, most likely the result of machete-inflicted wounds. He was, prior to his death, the leader of the Gonaives gang known as "The Cannibal Army." After his death, his brother Buteur Métayer swore vengeance against those he felt responsible for Amiot's death—namely, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Buteur took charge of the Cannibal Army and promptly renamed it the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti. In October 2003, France tasked philosopher Régis Debray with leading a commission in Haiti to improve bilateral relations, though strictly instructed him to not discuss potential reparations. Haitians fled their country on boats, seeking to get to the United States. The Haitian National Police collapsed during the rebel advance.

On the morning of 29 February, Deputy Chief of Mission Luis G. Moreno arrive at the presidential palace with Diplomatic Security Service officers and asked President Aristide for a resignation letter. after which Aristide was flown out of the country on a U.S. plane accompanied by US security personnel Latortue was selected as prime minister, and he spoke in Gonaïves a week after the coup, alongside Louis-Jodel Chamblain. He called the neo-Duvalierists "freedom fighters" and asked for a moment of silence for those that died "fighting against the dictatorship." A number of figures from Haiti's past re-appeared in government after the rebellion, including Hérard Abraham at the Ministry of the Interior, Williams Régala (a former aide to Henri Namphy) and Colonel Henri-Robert Marc-Charles, a member of the post-1991 military junta.

Alexandre petitioned the UN Security Council for the intervention of an international peacekeeping force. The Security Council passed a resolution the same day, "[t]aking note of the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide as President of Haiti and the swearing-in of President Boniface Alexandre as the acting President of Haiti in accordance with the Constitution of Haiti" and authorized such a mission. To prevent the breakdown of public order, under Operation Secure Tomorrow a force of about 1,700 United States Marines arrived in Haïti within the day, and 1,000 Canadian, French and Chilean troops were also sent. Some of the deployed Marines were of Haitian origin and they provided the force with local language and cultural knowledge. On 1 June 2004, the peacekeeping mission was passed to MINUSTAH and comprised a 7000-person force led by Brazil and backed up by Argentina, Chile, Jordan, Morocco, Nepal, Peru, Philippines, Spain, Sri Lanka and Uruguay.

Continued violence

The interim government was incapable of restoring the rule of law and public safety, and had to rely on assistance from international peacekeeping forces, which were too few to maintain stability in the entire country. The Haitian National Police, described by Human Rights Watch as "a demoralized and discredited force by the end of the Aristide presidency", was under-equipped, poorly trained, and outgunned and outnumbered by street gangs, former soldiers, and other armed groups. Police officers were also accused of human rights violations. There was an escalation in violence in the fall of 2004, including from some gangs that claimed to be supporters of the deposed president Aristide. As of August 2005, neither the PNH nor the foreign peacekeepers had arrested the heavily armed former paramilitary members, who remained at large. In August 2006, the administration of René Préval adopted a police reform plan.

In November 2004, the University of Miami School of Law carried out a Human Rights Investigation in Haiti and documented serious human rights abuses. It stated that "Summary executions are a police tactic." It also stated the following:

<blockquote>U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods, not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of the elected president. Their support for the interim government is not surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked for U.S. government projects that undermined their elected predecessors. Coupled with the U.S. government's development assistance embargo from 2000–2004, the projects suggest a disturbing pattern.

CARICOM

CARICOM (Caribbean Community) governments denounced the removal of Aristide from government. They also questioned the legality of the new government. The Prime Minister of Jamaica, P. J. Patterson, said that the episode set "a dangerous precedent for democratically elected governments anywhere and everywhere, as it promotes the removal of duly elected persons from office by the power of rebel forces." The U.S. and France have been accused of using pressure on CARICOM to not make a formal UN request for an investigation into the circumstances surrounding Aristide's removal.

The CARICOM initially refused to recognize the interim government, but in 2006 the newly elected René Préval resumed his country's membership in the organization.

French and U.S. involvement

thumb|[[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers inspecting U.S. troops deployed as part of peacekeeping operations in Haiti on 13 March 2004]]

In 2022, the French ambassador to Haiti at the time, Thierry Burkard, told The New York Times, that France and the United States had "effectively orchestrated "a coup" against Aristide by pressuring him to step down and taking him into exile". He stated French involvement was likely partly motivated by Aristide's call for reparations from France. Another French ambassador, Philippe Selz, told the paper that the decision "to extradite" President Aristide had been made in advance.

On 1 March 2004, US congresswoman Maxine Waters, along with Aristide family friend Randall Robinson, reported that Aristide had told them (using a smuggled cellular phone), that he had been forced to resign and abducted from the country by the United States. He said he had been held hostage by an armed military guard.

Aristide later repeated the same thing, in an interview with Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! on 16 March. Goodman asked Aristide if he resigned, and President Aristide replied: "No, I didn't resign. What some people call 'resignation' is a 'new coup d'état,' or 'modern kidnapping.

Many supporters of the Fanmi Lavalas party and Aristide, as well as some foreign supporters, denounced the rebellion as a foreign controlled coup d'état orchestrated by Canada, France and the United States deletto remove a democratically elected president. Some have come forward to support his claim saying they witnessed him being escorted out by American soldiers at gunpoint. Economist Jeffrey Sachs wrote that "this U.S. administration froze all multilateral development assistance to Haiti ... U.S. officials surely knew that the aid embargo would mean a balance-of-payments crisis, a rise in inflation and a collapse of living standards, all of which fed the rebellion."

Sources close to Aristide also claim the Bush administration blocked attempts to reinforce his bodyguards. The Steele Foundation, the San Francisco-based organization which supplied Aristide's bodyguards, declined to comment.

According to a Washington Times article of April 2004:

The US denied the accusations. "He was not kidnapped," Secretary of State Colin Powell said. "We did not force him onto the airplane. He went on the airplane willingly and that's the truth." The kidnapping claim is "absolutely false," concurred Parfait Mbaye, the communications minister for the Central African Republic, where Aristide's party was taken. The minister told CNN that Aristide had been granted permission to land in the country after Aristide himself – as well as the U.S. and French governments – requested it.

According to the US, as the rebels approached the capital, James B. Foley, U.S. ambassador to Haiti, got a phone call from a high-level aide to Aristide, asking if the U.S. could protect Aristide and help facilitate his departure if he resigned. The call prompted a series of events that included a middle-of-the-night phone call to President Bush and a scramble to find a plane to carry Aristide into exile. Foley said that he traveled voluntarily via motorcade to the airport with his own retinue of security guards, including some contracted Americans. Before takeoff, Aristide gave a copy of his resignation letter to Foley's aide.

Aristide has also denied that a letter he left behind constitutes an official resignation. "There is a document that was signed to avoid a bloodbath, but there was no formal resignation," he said. "This political kidnapping was the price to pay to avoid a bloodbath." According to the US embassy translation it reads "Tonight I am resigning in order to avoid a bloodbath. I accept to leave, with the hope that there will be life and not death." A slightly different translation was given by Albert Valdman, a linguistics professor and specialist in Haitian Creole at Indiana University in Bloomington, Ind. "If tonight it is my resignation that will avoid a bloodbath, I accept to leave with the hope that there will be life and not death."

Notes

References

External links

2019 documentary film on Canada's role in Haiti since 2003: Haiti Betrayed
The 2004 removal of Jean-Bertrand Aristide—Timeline of events
Extensive coverage of the coup—Provided by Democracy Now!.
Archive of broadcasts on the Haiti coup and its aftermath—Provided by Flashpoints.
Haiti Watch—Provided by ZNet.
PBS NewsHour coverage
The Week of War – The final week of Jean Bertrand Aristide
A political website dedicated to political activism on Canada's role in Haiti
CIIA Development and Inequality Symposium Paper (March 2006)—Paper examining repression in the post-coup period and link to Canadian policy
"Review of Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (2008), Randall Robinson, An Unbroken Agony: Haiti, From Revolution to the Kidnapping of a President (2007), and Alex Dupuy, The Prophet and Power: Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti, and the International Community (2006)". NACLA Report on the Americas. November–December 2008. Issue Vol. 41, No. 6. By Jeb Sprague.
The Other Regime Change by Max Blumenthal, Salon.com, July 2004
Operation Secure Tomorrow by GlobalSecurity.org
Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg, 29 January 2006, "Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos", The New York Times