I am old enough to still believe that the comings and goings of units such as JTF2 should not be publicly discussed, at least until after the fact.
FIELD REPORT: The Truth About Haiti by Richard Crossman
Port-au-Prince, 15 December, 1994
Sunday, 18 September, 1994, as Special Forces soldiers of Task Force Raleigh (3rd SFGA) at the Intermediate Support Base in Guantanamo Cuba were making their final equipment checks, charging their magazines and cross- loading their excess team gear and ammunition among team members, GEN Wayne Downing, CinC United States Special Operations Command, wandered through tent city offering words of inspiration. His most prophetic statement was: "Special Forces is going to make history in Haiti."
True. On 19 September, 1994, for the first time in history, at the behest of the racists of the Congressional Black Caucus, their communist TransAfrica allies, and in the name of the United Nations, the executive branch of the United States government willingly and knowingly, in violation of the war making powers delegated to Congress by the Constitution, deployed the United States Army to Haiti for the expressed purpose of installing a COMMUNIST government and ensuring its success by force of arms.
The Intelligence Estimates issued with pre-invasion Operations Plans and the Intelligence Annexes issued with Operations Orders to units planning for the 18 September, 1994, invasion were worse than useless. Summary descriptions of various political factions were largely based on refugee debriefs, official State Department political analyses and United Nations reports of alleged "human rights" abuse rather than fact.
An indicator of just how false the pre-occupation press coverage and finished political intelligence had occurred in mid-August. United States Ambassador to Haiti, William Swing invited expatriate Americans living in Haiti to the embassy for a meeting to discuss their views on the impending United States invasion to restore Aristide. Mr. Terry Anderson, an Independent Baptist missionary who has lived in Haiti for over 10 years and who was present at Swing's meeting told one of our observers that the meeting was a farce.
"Everybody present," recounted Anderson, "emphatically opposed both the invasion and bringing back Aristide." "For over an hour," he continued, "we told him about Aristide's past, his lunatic ravings, his communist connections, and the necklacing on his political opponents, on his orders, by his followers.
We told him that since the coup no American had been threatened, but when Aristide was president it wasn't safe to walk the streets at night. We told him of Aristide's hatred of the United States and even showed him transcripts of his speeches where he calls the United States a 'demon' nation. Swing never responded to anything we tried to tell him. He ended the meeting without comment."
With rare exceptions whatever was printed, televised or broadcast about conditions in Haiti prior to the occupation was a deliberate lie.
The hysterical anti-Cedras propaganda campaign waged by the American media throughout the spring and summer of 1994 (and mirrored in intelligence documentation issued to units deploying to Haiti) was carefully crafted to portray the followers of Aristide's Lavalas movement as defenseless puppy- huggers desperately trying to bring "democracy" to Haiti while enduring brutal "right-wing" terror and oppression at the hands of the Forces Armee d'Haiti (FAd'H), their Attaches, and the Front for the Advancement of the Haitian People (FRAPH). The truth is exactly the opposite.
In order to define what the Lavalas movement is, and who belongs to it, it is helpful to place it in context with American society.
If every street gang, vagrant, opportunistic criminal, welfare moocher, labor union agitator and unemployed layabout, homosexual, drug addict, ethnic tribalist, and other assorted street garbage formed a loose political coalition; whose cadre consisted of high school and college "students" putting into practice the collectivist lessons of their teachers and professors; the leader of this organization was an insane TV evangelist; and this "movement" was lent legitimacy by some foreign government and received sympathetic coverage from the media; this, then, would define Aristide's Lavalas movement.
These are "the people" upon whom the media, the Clinton administration and communist special interest groups in the United States adore and lavish so much attention on. Simply put, the Lavalas are the lazy, inept, stupid, corrupt, opportunistic and incompetent of Haitian society. Predictably, their understanding of democracy is nearly perfect: the biggest mob rules, therefore the biggest mob makes the rules and grabs the loot.
Whenever communists comprehend that their evil has been recognized for what it is they simply change their lexicon. What was once called state planning is now called "managed competition." What was once called world peace is now called the New World Order, In like manner, what was called communism is now called "democracy."
The vilification of General Cedras and his political supporters is descriptive of the ultimate goal of the United Nations directed occupation of Haiti: destruction of the Haitian middle class in order to bring Haiti into the collectivist "world community."
the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) has been universally reviled by the American media and the communist propaganda machine as a paramilitary extremist organization. Because news reports leading up to the occupation focused almost entirely on its alleged campaign of terror waged against "the people" it is illustrative to define what FRAPH was and who made up its membership.
Although FRAPH was officially established as a political party in 1993, it actually dated back to the mid 1980's. It was originally founded as an anti-communist resistance movement coincident with the rise of the communist "Little Church" liberation theology movement run by Aristide.
The FRAPH leadership was largely ex-military. FRAPH membership was a representative cross section of the Haitian middle class, consisting mainly of property owners businessmen, farmers, tradesmen, craftsmen, and both blue and white collar workers.
The equivalent of FRAPH, in an American context, would be the VFW and the American Legion forming a political party. The hated Attaches were in fact nothing more than a community watch organization that augmented FAd'H Casernes and Advanced Posts.
In other words, FRAPH represented the interests of those Haitians who were reasonably competent and intelligent and who were, by Haitian standards, successful. Their unforgivable crime was defending their success and livelihoods against the envious.
Simply put, the FAd'H, FRAPH and Attaches represented the competent, able and successful of Haitian society and they did hesitate to defend their interests against the moochers, looters and parasites coalesced as the Lavalas movement. Then the United States Army under the command of the United Nations arrived and threw them to the jackals.
In early October Special Forces ODAs fanned out to establish United States presence in the outlying towns. They were greeted by hysterical mobs jogging through the street singing in unison in typical African fashion. The words to the most popular song were self explanatory to any with the ears to listen; "When Titid (Aristide) gets back you're going to pay, we'll have our revenge."
The reason for the hysteria was quite simple. The Lavalas believed that the Americans had arrived to allow them to do whatever they wanted; loot businesses, expropriate and redistribute property, and murder the FAd'H, FRAPH and Attaches. It was a belief grounded in their observation of American actions.
The communist and United Nations propaganda about Haiti defined the operational parameters for Special Forces units occupying small towns and cities in the hinterland.
The first order of business was to disarm the FAd'H. Since this action normally occurred in direct sight of a shrieking mob of "the people" this would incite them into a murderous frenzy and more often then not the disarmed Haitian soldiers had to be physically protected from "people's justice."
In consequence many Haitian soldiers deserted at the first convenient opportunity in justifiable fear of their lives, and those who remained at their casernes played a quiet game of of passive resistance and feigned incompetence.
The second order of business was to gain de facto control over the political and judicial system. This was generally accomplished by holding a "town meeting" where officials of the disposed government were seated before "the people."
Although ostensibly chaired by the detachment commander this "town meeting" actually run by Lavalas gangsters who put forth an agenda fed to them by priests and catholic lay workers of the "Little Church" movement.
Through threats and intimidation backed up by the presence of U.S. soldiers the existing political and judicial structure was effectively demolished. Without exception the theme of these meetings revolved around the "people's demands" that the FAd'H, FRAPH and the Attaches be disarmed.
the third order of business was the disarming of the Haitian middle class. (Here, context is extremely important. Under Haitian law prior to the occupation it was legal to virtually any weapon one desired short of crew served served weapons so long as one kept it in one's home for personal protection.
This means, possession of a select fire Galil, or an Uzi. was legal so long as one had the necessary permit issued by the FAd'H. In other words, if you could afford it you could own it. Attaches and police auxiliaries were frequently issued (that means they signed for) M-1 rifles and CS grenades in connection with their official duties. These weapons were kept in their homes.)
Weapons confiscation proceeded on the basis of lists of "enemies of the people" (known or suspected FRAPH members, Attaches, businessmen and property owners) supplied to the detachment by Lavalas "delegates," priests, State Department USAID workers and, in more than one instance, American journalists.
Additional lists were supplied by Christian Peacemaking Teams, an organization with close ties to the Communist Party United States of America (CPUSA) and the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), and whom Special forces detachments were ordered by Joint Special Operations Task Force (which took its orders from the United Nations) to render every assistance and support.
Warrantless searches of residences for weapons "caches" were generally based on rumor and anonymous "tips." With rare exceptions these searches turned up nothing. Subsequent to these searches the targeted residences would be looted by "the people."
The weapons buy-back program came to be referred to as the "Snitch-off-a-Relative Program." Teen-age hoodlums would either rob the houses of their relatives and sell the weapons to the Americans, or lead detachment members to relative's houses, break into the house in their presence, and sell the weapons on the spot.
Current United Nations plans call for a continued presence of Special Forces in Haiti for at least two years. 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) will maintain a continuous presence in Haiti of one augmented Forward Operations Base (FOB(+)).
Both 1st SFGA and 5th SFGA will have an Advanced Operations Base (AOB(+)) OPCON to 3rd SFG's FOB(+), alternating six month rotations. In addition, both the 19th SFGA and 20th SFGA (National Guard) will be federalized in early January, 1995; each providing an AOB(+) OPCON to 3rd SFG's FOB(+) in Haiti.
By the time the United Nations declares Haiti "a stable and secure environment for democracy" a majority of United States Army Special Forces soldiers will have had extensive training and experience in internal security operations and maintaining "domestic order."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Sidebar]
Special Forces Underground in Haiti
The following is an synthesis of several reports forwarded by our members currently deployed to Haiti.
Immediately upon arrival in an operational area we met with senior non- commissioned officers of the FAd'H and arranged a meeting with senior representatives of FAd'H, Attaches and FRAPH. This was not as easy as it sounds given the treatment these groups had received in Port-au-Prince and Cap Haitien in late September.
It called for a very blunt cold-pitch describing our hatred of communism and our official mission. Dicey' but when we explained how we could help them they almost always agreed.
The first thing we did was identify the most active anti-communists in the Attaches and FRAPH and told them to take long vacations and go visit relatives on the other side of the island.
Second, we informed them about the plans and timetables for weapons confiscation and told them how to disappear their functional firearms while keeping broken and otherwise useless available to sell during the weapons buy- back program.
Third, we identified the Lavalas leadership, their friends and associates, and collected from the FAd'H any information they had on them including criminal records.
Fourth, we told FRAPH members to stay out of politics, mind their jobs and businesses and let the communists expose their true agendas. This was risky, but in the towns where this plan was implemented _every_ violent crime involving politics was directly attributable to the Lavalas.
Fifth, we waged a clandestine offensive against the Lavalas (details omitted; ed) which in our operational areas managed to drive at least the leadership back underground.
Finally, we have established an escape line to help FAd'H, ex-Attaches and ex-FRAPH members under threat of arrest from the communists reach relative safety in the Dominican Republic.