On
December 27, 1993, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant
and his FRAPH (Revolutionary Front for the
Advancement and Progress of Haiti) death squads began
firing on the Haitian shantytown of Cite Soleil. They
then circled the town with gasoline and burnt several
hundred homes to the ground, forcing some fleeing
residents- children included- back into their burning
homes at gunpoint.
Two months before this attack, in October, 1993, the
U.S. navy vessel, USS Harlan County was dispatched to
Haiti carrying 200 troops to ostensibly pave the way
for previously ousted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide's return to power. As the ship approached
the Port-au-Prince wharf, Constant and his men staged
a riot and the USS Harlan was unable to dock. As a
result, the populist President's scheduled return was
aborted.
During Constant's three-year reign of terror, his
FRAPH death squads butchered several thousand Haitian
civilians. So how is it that one of the world's
leading terrorists is free and living in a nice,
two-story home in the quiet Laurelton neighborhood of
Queens, New York?
After the U.S. military entered Haiti in 1994,
Constant, who by then had a criminal subpoena and a
warrant for his arrest, escaped an uninspired
"search" by U.S. soldiers and slipped into
the U.S. on a tourist visa. He was eventually
captured and placed in the custody of U.S.
immigration authorities for over a year. In 1995, the
Haitian government requested Constant's extradition
on charges of murder, torture and arson; however the
U.S. suspended his deportation, claiming that Haitian
courts could not handle the extradition and instead
gave Constant a green card to live and work freely in
the U.S.
In truth, it appears that the government's change of
heart on the extradition began after Constant
revealed on the television news magazine "60
Minutes," in December, 1995, that he had been on
the CIA payroll during Haiti's military rule
(1991-1994). Constant then sued the U.S. government
and threatened to reveal other CIA missdeeds in Haiti
if he was not released- a strategy that worked in
Constant's favor. This list of misdeeds are believed
to include CIA involvement in the 1991 coup that
forced democratically-elected President Aristide out
of the country, and that Constant staged the
Port-au-Prince riot in October 1993 at the direction
of the CIA to provide the U.S. with a reason to
withhold President Aristide from Haiti.
Currently, as cluster bombs and daisy cutters fall on
Afghanistan, the United States is a friendly host to
terrorist Emmanuel Constant, responsible for the
murders of thousands. The government refuses to
extradite him to Haiti despite substantial evidence
of his involvement in death, arson and torture and
despite several requests from the Haitian government.
Constant himself states that FRAPH still operates in
Haiti, and he plans to return soon. The double
standard here is interesting and goes unreported in
the mainstream press. The U.S. justifies the
Afghanistan war on much the same premise and may even
expand that war to several other alleged
"terrorist-harboring" countries such as
Iraq and Syria. To date, the Haitians have no plans
to begin bombing the United States.
Dr. Pittelli
is a psychiatrist and post-September 11 convert to
political activism from San Luis Obispo, CA.
