Former Haitian rebel sought by US for drug trafficking says he will run for Senate

[AlphaCentauri]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: A former Haitian rebel wanted by the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges said Thursday that he plans to run for Senate.

Guy Philippe, whose rebel band helped topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide during a 2004 revolt, has been in hiding since U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Haitian police raided his home in July.

"You don't need to look hard for me because there are going to be elections," Philippe told Radio Vision 2000 in a telephone interview — without revealing his location. "I am going to be a candidate for Senate."

The legislative elections, originally scheduled for last November, were postponed as Haiti launched an investigation into fraud allegations at its electoral council. A new date has not been set.

The former soldier ran for president in 2006 under his Front for National Reconstruction Party, which hoped to reinstate the notorious Haitian military disbanded by Aristide.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/03/27/news/CB-GEN-Haiti-Rebel-Leader.php

[magbana]

1. Is this Any Way to Treat the Guy Who Did Your Dirty Work?

From my blog: Haiti-Cuba-Venezuela Analysis

HAITI: The DEA Hunts for Guy Philippe Again! US, Is this Any way to Treat the Guy Who Did Your Dirty Work?

Guy Philippe was one of two primary leaders of a paramilitary group that the US housed, trained and armed in the Dominican Republic to make cross-border attacks into Haiti beginning in 2002 in order to kill their countrymen aligned with the administration of the democratically-elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Last year, he started shooting his mouth off about which elite members of Haitian society helped finance the coup. Before long, the DEA engaged in a dramatic hunt looking for Philippe and came up empty-handed.
Perhaps, anticipating his announcement that he plans to run for the Haitian Senate, the DEA is after him again. The issue is that Philippe knows way too much about the US involvement in the coup and especially about hat of a diplomat who used to be at the US embassy in Port-au-Prince. Philippe must be contained and the bet way to do that is drive him underground. Arresting him is tricky because the US doesn't want him in court talking either. So the pretend pursuit of Philippe continues and soon you may be able to call the guy with the most blood on his hands from the 2004 coup -- Senator Philippe.


Former Haitian rebel sought by US for drug trafficking says he will run for Senate

The Associated Press
Thursday, March 27, 2008
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: A former Haitian rebel wanted by the U.S. on drug-trafficking charges said Thursday that he plans to run for Senate.Guy Philippe, whose rebel band helped topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide during a 2004 revolt, has been in hiding since U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents and Haitian police raided his home in July."You don't need to look hard for me because there are going to be elections," Philippe told Radio Vision 2000 in a telephone interview — without revealing his location. "I am going to be a candidate for Senate."The legislative elections, originally scheduled for last November, were postponed as Haiti launched an investigation into fraud allegations at its electoral council. A new date has not been set.The former soldier ran for president in 2006 under his Front for National Reconstruction Party, which hoped to reinstate the notorious Haitian military disbanded by Aristide.Philippe, who has been named in a sealed indictment in the U.S. state of Florida, evaded arrest during the DEA raid last summer. But local radio reported that foreign, English-speaking agents went looking for Philippe at his home in southern Haiti again on Tuesday.

In the radio interview, he accused the U.S. of fabricating allegations against him.

"Before when they wanted you they said you were a communist. Now they say you're a drug trafficker."

Philippe told a local radio show in October that he was the victim of a political plot and he dared U.S. agents to kill him.

http://hcvanalysis.wordpress.com/2008/03/27/haiti-the-dea-hunts-for-guy-philippe-again-us-is-this-any-way-to-treat-the-guy-who-did-your-dirty-work/

[Judi Lynn]

2. I never could understand how such a handsome guy could be so vicious.

As phenomenally rough as this character is, he'd be no match for the destruction _{George Bush} will launch against him if he threatens to expose too much about his filthy war on Haitians.

It would be tremendous if, before _Bush has him whacked, he could find a news outlet ANYWHERE with international presence he could tell about _Bush and get his information published. Unfortunately, the corporate controls are everywhere, narrowly defining what is finally going to be told, read, heard.


Found an excellent article while looking for a photo of Guy Philippe:

February 3 / 4, 2007

U.S. Reporting on the Coup Haiti
How to Turn a Priest into a Cannibal
By DIANA BARAHONA

When Haiti's wealthy elites removed President Jean Bertrand Aristide from office in a February 2004 coup, they had the help of the Bush administration, as well as that of the French and Canadian governments. But they also had help from the U.S. press, which helped publicize a carefully planned narrative to justify the overthrow.

I have always been interested in how a supposedly independent press so often manages to report on foreign affairs from the point of view of the State Department. What are the mechanisms by which the government's narrative ends up being the frame for stories about U.S. military interventions and CIA-backed coups in the Americas? Who are the foreign correspondents and how do they learn the "correct" way to report on a given crisis? Journalist Michael Deibert reported as a special correspondent in Haiti during the crisis, contributing to or authoring 16 stories, which were first published in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel and then in Newsday. I chose to look at the stories of just one foreign correspondent because together they provide a perfect example of framing techniques used by the press to create acquiescence towards the coup, or at least to confuse the public.

The narrative

Every overthrow of a government begins with a narrative. Its purpose is to justify the military removal of a president by telling the world that he is bad and unpopular among the majority of the people. Another way of presenting it is that the leader is the cause of a problem-a crisis-and that the only solution is a change of government. Formulated by Stanley Lucas, a Haitian-American employee of the International Republican Institute, and Otto Reich, at the time a special envoy to the Western Hemisphere for the NSA, the narrative was repeated by spokesmen for the official foreign-financed political opposition as well as by NGOs funded by the United States, France and Canada. All that was needed was for the press to adopt the narrative as its own frame. Here is one version of the narrative (March 4, Newsday): "Haiti's poor majority initially saw Aristide as something of a savior, first electing him president in 1990. In recent years, his popularity fell amid allegations that he tolerated corruption and used armed gangs to suppress dissent."

Another variation on the theme of lost support was given while reporting on Aristide's forced exile (March 1, Newsday): "Haiti's first democratically elected president, who in recent years had been accused of corruption, human rights abuses and ineptitude, apparently flew out of the capital undetected about 6:45 a.m. in a U.S.-provided jet after losing the support not only of many Haitians, but of his chief international backers."

And finally, "Aristide, who was elected for a second time as Haiti's president in December 2000, fled into exile Feb. 29 after months of large street protests against what critics charged was his increasingly violent and corrupt rule" (Mar. 8, Newsday).

The authors' repeated assertion that Aristide had lost popularity and support is patently false. He won the 2000 election with 90 percent of votes cast, and a 2002 USAID-commissioned Gallup poll showed that over 60% of the populace still supported the president. Even going by the action in the streets, witnesses to the demonstrations say that for every anti-Aristide protest there was a much larger pro-Aristide demonstration.

Questionable legitimacy

Part of the process of undermining Aristide was to question the legitimacy of his tenure as president. Implicit in the narratives cited above is the idea that Aristide only wanted power; the idea that he felt obligated to defend the country's fledgling constitutional democracy is never mentioned. To the contrary, the authors of the articles use the word "constitutional" to describe the manner in which Aristide was replaced:

McClellan said Washington remains "committed to working with our international partners toward a peaceful, constitutional and democratic solution." That was an apparent reference to news reports that the administration wants Aristide to resign in favor of his constitutionally designated successor, Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre (Ken Fireman, Newsday, Feb. 28).

After McClellan's quote, the authors go on to use the word constitutional in every subsequent reference to Alexandre. In this way, Aristide is made to be illegitimate, and his refusal to cede to the unconstitutional demand that he resign is portrayed as the stubbornness of a dictator. The authors reinforce this idea of illegitimate rule by twice referring to Aristide's government as a "regime" (Jan. 1, Mar. 1), and by repeatedly calling him "dictatorial." They use the expression, "corrupt and dictatorial" four times and "despotic" once. Even people who fought against the coup are delegitimized by calling them "Aristide's die-hard supporters" (Feb. 28), as if their resistance were irrational. According to Deibert, after the coup, supporters hoped he would "return to power," not "complete his term as president," as Haiti's 1987 constitution required.

http://www.counterpunch.org/barahona02032007.html

~~~~~~~~~~
Didn't Guy Philippe "work" for _Bush's father in the first bloody coup against Aristide, then hide out with U.S. protection after that, like Emmanuel Constant and Louis-Jodel Chamblain, until they were used by #43? I heard one of these guys (Constant or Chamblain) got in trouble only last week for an alleged drug charge in the States. I didn't pay enough attention at the time to get the facts right, being disgusted with the fact at least one of them comes and goes here, as in the days after they were used to kill Haitians by _{Bush #41} and only seems to live to kill again for them, should their total control of the island start slipping again.

Well, becoming a Senator seems like a good hobby for a government hired killer and death squad leader. during the off years.
Thanks.

[magbana]

4. Didn't hear about a drug charge in US, but, I thought I would share this for folks who

may not be aware. Toto Constant one of the most vicious killers in recent Haitian history was given safe passage to the US and lived in great anonimity in Queens, NY until in 2007:

Former Haitian Death Squad Leader Pleads Guilty to Fraud

EMANUEL "TOTO" CONSTANT WILL FINALLY SERVE TIME

Emanuel "Toto" Constant, the former leader of the Haitian paramilitary death squad known as FRAPH (the Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress), pled guilty on February 8, 2007 to grand larceny and fraud in conjunction with a real estate mortgage scheme.

Attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) welcomed the news that he may finally do jail time, but expressed the desire to see him held accountable for his role in more than 5,000 murders and untold dismemberment, rapes and other torture and violence in the early 1990s.

"Emmanuel Constant deserves to serve a long sentence for what he did to the people of Haiti. If we can send him to jail for defrauding a bank, then so be it. It's a start," said Jennifer M. Green, Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

For years, the Center for Constitutional Rights campaigned to have Constant held accountable for his crimes, from filing law suits to leading marches to his residence in Queens to working with grassroots groups in New York and Haiti to have him brought to justice. CCR, working with a coalition of Haitian and U.S. women's organizations, went before the Organization of American States' Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which resulted in the condemnation of mass rape in Haiti by military and paramilitary forces including FRAPH.

Last fall, CCR, together with the Center for Justice and Accountability and the law firm of Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal, won a $19 million civil judgment against Constant for crimes against humanity, attempted summary execution, and rape and other torture.

A former paid CIA informant, Constant has been permitted to live in the U.S. since 1996 despite his crimes. Following a violent military coup against democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991, FRAPH, under Constant's leadership, committed massacres, gang-rapes and other torture. Two of the three plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit were gang-raped in front of their families. A third was attacked by two FRAPH operatives and left for dead. After President Aristide returned to power, his government issued an arrest warrant for Constant, but Constant fled to the United States. Constant has been living in Queens since 1994.

In the mid-1990s, CCR obtained documents from the U.S. government through a series of Freedom of Information Act Requests which confirmed the broad and systematic pattern of FRAPH abuses and revealed that Constant directly conspired in the assassination of President Aristide's Minister of Justice, Guy Malary.



The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

- 30 -


http://ccrjustice.org/newsroom/press-releases/former-haitian-death-squad-leader-pleads-guilty-fraud

http://snipurl.com/22x96

[Judi Lynn]

6. I've taken a brief look and can't find a story on Constant which is recent.

I really wish I had been paying closer attention. I'm not sure what it was at this point as it went in one ear and out the other, with very little residue!

I'll keep my eyes out for something, and will post it if something shows up. I'd like to know more about it now that I can't find anything! I'm usually in a rush, or preoccupied and pay very little attention to things I hear unless they hit me over the head.

It is great to see this character being required to get off the street for a while. He could use some time learning person to person communication WITHOUT a machine gun in his hands.

[Judi Lynn]

3. That's a brain twister, considering he could be described as a "U.S. agent" himself!

He did make a point maybe someone should think about, however: the war on "communism" has morphed into the "war on drugs," or even the "war on terrorism," as obnoxious as that is!

It has ALWAYS been the "war on all people who don't bow down to us."

[AlphaCentauri]

5. There have been others like Noriega, Sadam, Laden, etc... n/t