Experts See Ulterior Motives Behind US Decision to Finally Deport Haitian
Death Squad Leader
Emmanuel Toto Constant was immediately arrested after touching down in
Port-au-Prince, 26 years after he fled to the US following the Raboteau
massacre.
by Alan Macleod
June 24th, 2020
By Alan Macleod
After decades escaping justice, the United States finally deported death
squad leader Emmanuel Toto Constant back to Haiti yesterday. Constant,
leader of the infamous Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress
of Haiti (FRAPH) paramilitary, was immediately arrested as he touched down
on the tarmac in Port-au-Prince, 26 years after he fled to the United
States, where he received de facto political asylum. Constant was sentenced
in absentia to life in prison by a Haitian court for his role in leading the
1994 Raboteau massacre, where the FRAPH slaughtered supporters of the
recently ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been protesting
the military dictatorship that overthrew him.
However, none of the Haiti experts that MintPress spoke to saw the news as a
welcome development.
Friends in high places
The timing of Constants deportation is especially worrisome. Not only did
it occur in the midst of a global pandemic, with local resources stretched
thin and attention focused elsewhere, but he can count on the support of
certain segments of those in power in Haiti today, said Jake Johnston,
Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic Policy Research in
Washington, D.C., a think tank specializing in domestic and Latin American
matters. Prior Haitian governments had requested the U.S. deport Constant
so that he could face justice for his role in the Raboteau massacre. The
U.S. refused. Now, however, with one of his codefendants in the high command
of the newly reinstalled military, former allies close to power, and a
deeply politicized judiciary, his deportation is unlikely to lead to real
justice or accountability as surely the U.S. administration understands,
he added.
Jeb Sprague, a Research Associate at the University of California,
Riverside, and author of Paramilitarism and the assault on democracy in
Haiti, agreed. My guess is that the government of Jovenel Moïse will not
prosecute him. That government is very close to the far-right. And in fact
it has a lot of former death squad and military members in official
positions in the government, he told MintPress.
Kim Ives, a journalist at Haiti Liberté, was even more downcast: Im
disgusted. I suspect he may walk freely in Haiti soon, one way or another
he told MintPress, explaining that his return to his homeland couldnt come
at a worse time. His right-wing political allies are in power. President
Jovenel Moïse of the Haitian Bald Headed Party (PHTK) currently rules Haiti
by decree. Parliament has been disbanded, and Haitis judges are on strike.
Constant, the son of a military general under the murderous Duvalier
dictatorship (1957-1986), modeled his FRAPH on the feared Tonton Macoutes
death squads that terrorized Haiti throughout that era. Human rights groups
estimate that the FRAPH killed some 3,000 political opponents during the
1991-1994 dictatorship that deposed Aristide, the countrys first
democratically elected leader. It was public knowledge that he was supported
by Washington. We know that he was getting paid monthly by the CIA. He
would brag that he was protected by them, later on, so it is very scary the
level of impunity that these types of individuals have, said Sprague. As
Aristide returned to power in 1994, Constant fled to New York City, where he
worked as a real estate broker. The U.S. blocked all extradition requests
from Haiti. Despite his connections, in 2007, an American court found him
liable for torture, attempted extrajudicial killings and crimes against
humanity, ordering him to pay compensation to women who claim they were
raped and had their breasts cut off by his forces.
A history of violence
For the brief period of Haitis democracy, between 1995-2004, the U.S.
protected the many killers that it used in its long-running war against the
Haitian people. Emmanuel Constant was the most egregious example. Through a
coup and occupation, Haitis sovereignty was destroyed. Returning Constant
to COVID-afflicted, ruled-by-decree Haiti is another insult to the people of
the country and the victims of Constant and FRAPH. Haiti is in no position
to bring such people to justice, and the U.S. knows it. But whatever
miscarriage of justice happens now, the U.S. will comfortably blame Haiti
for it, Justin Podur, author of Haitis New Dictatorship, told MintPress.
In 2008, Constant was convicted of mortgage fraud and grand larceny, serving
12 years in a New York prison. As part of the Trump administrations push to
expel more immigrants, he was immediately scheduled for deportation after
his sentence was up. However, his case kept getting stalled, leading to
suspicions that he was still under CIA protection.
The US Keeps Trying, and Failing, to Deport a Former CIA Operative Back to
Haiti
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant was supposed to board an ICE deportation flight,
the US gov't second attempt to send him back to Haiti.
MintPress News | Raul Diego | May 11
Constants mission during the 1990s was to destroy the progressive,
grassroots movement around Aristide, pacifying the country and paving the
way for a return to the military dictatorship that had ruled for decades.
Aristide unexpectedly came to power in 1991 in the countrys first
(reasonably) democratic election, beating a U.S.-backed Duvalier official
Marc Bazin, a former World Bank economist. Aristide was a radical priest who
preached the doctrine of liberation theology and called for a political
revolution, and unbeknownst to the outside world, a huge nationwide
democratic movement was building. He took the election in a landslide,
winning 68 percent of the vote to Bazins 14 percent, shocking the Haitian
establishment and Washington alike.
However, hope was dashed as he was deposed in a coup that the first Bush
administration, behind the scenes, worked hard to ensure was successful.
Bazin was installed as leader anyway. With their man at the helm,
Washington, the World Bank and others were confident that Haiti would
finally become the Taiwan of the Caribbean they had been predicting it
would be since the 1980s. But the only results of the wide ranging
structural adjustment reforms was to destroy Haitian agriculture and to turn
the country into one of the most exploited sweatshop states in the world.
Protests in Haiti, Like Frances Yellow Vests, Threaten Oligarchic Structure
Protests in Haiti rage over Jovenel Moises corruption, mismanagement, and
scandals, posing a threat to the country's US-backed oligarchy.
MintPress News | Whitney Webb | Feb 15, 2019
Remarkably, Aristides career was far from over, returning to the countrys
top position in 1994, being re-elected in 2001. While in power, he oversaw a
massive public education, health and literacy drive, doubling the minimum
wage and introducing land reform measures. However, the second Bush
administration managed to orchestrate his removal in a coup in 2004. Since
then, the country has been in serious political decline, resulting in a
situation today where President Moïse has canceled elections and rules by
decree, triggering nearly two years of ongoing nationwide protests that have
rocked the nation but have received scant attention in the Western press.
The US diplomatic-military-intelligence apparatus has local allies on the
ground that it works with and Constant is a perfect example of that. And so
Haiti itself suffers from this total impunity for past right-wing violence.
After the 2004 coup détat, so many of the people involved in massacres and
assassinations of social movement activists, labor and left-wing protestors,
and so many of the individuals who had been involved in the killing of these
grassroots now have complete impunity, said Sprague. Thus, while on the
surface, the news about Constant may seem like a positive step, it is far
from certain whether he is returning to face justice or because it is now
totally safe for him to do so. Most fear the latter.
