In new bid for power, Guy Philippe vows to 'fix' Haiti's gangs in 90 days [View all]
Convicted of money laundering, the former senator said he now wants to start a ‘revolution’ in Haiti
BY ONZ CHÉRY
JAN. 03, 2024
Guy Philippe led the 2004 coup against Jean-Bertrand Aristide from bbc
CAP-HAITIEN — Just weeks after his release from prison in the United States and deportation to Haiti, former Senator Guy Philippe made a stop in Cap-Haitien on Haiti’s Independence Day, where he vowed to “fix” Haiti’s gang problem within 90 days. The stop is part of a tour Philippe has undertaken to build support for what he calls a new revolution.
“I said it and will say it again: In 90 days, I can fix this problem I see in the streets,” Philippe said during a press conference streamed on Unissons Nous, a local outlet.
https://haitiantimes.com/2024/01/03/guy-philippe-gang-violence-haiti/
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The Real Crimes of Guy Philippe
Selections from “Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti” (Part 1 of 3)
Jeb Sprague -May 3, 2017213514
Guy Philippe, a Cap-Haïtien police chief, was the most charismatic and educated of the dissident police chiefs who formed a cabal trying to foment a coup against former President René Préval. Credit: Carlos Villalon
Former paramilitary leader Guy Philippe will be going to jail for money laundering in connection with drug trafficking. But his more serious crimes were murdering Haitians and Haitian democracy as the leader of the “armed opposition” during the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d’état against former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In the early 1990s, Emmanuel “Toto” Constant headed another anti-Aristide paramilitary organization known as the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), which played a large role in killing an estimated 5,000 during the 1991-1994 coup d’état.
Like Philippe, Constant was never tried for his crimes against humanity. Instead, in 1996, the Clinton administration gave him de facto political asylum in the United States. However, in 2008, he was convicted in New York of mortgage fraud and is currently serving a 12-37 year prison sentence.
If he had gone to trial in May and been convicted, Philippe faced a life term for drug trafficking. Instead, he struck a plea deal with federal prosecutors whereby he will likely serve only 7.5 to 9 years in jail.
Although serving terms for lesser offenses, Constant and Philippe are both part of a murderous paramilitary continuum in Haiti that can be traced from François “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Volunteers for National Security (VSN), commonly known as the Tonton Macoutes, to the death-squads that continue kidnapping and murder in Haiti today.
More:
https://haitiliberte.com/the-real-crimes-of-guy-philippe/
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US-backed Haitian government agents accused of conducting massacre
Jeb Sprague
19 December 2018
In recent weeks and months, people in Haiti have been sharing horrifying videos over social media and WhatsApp. Videos from the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of La Saline reportedly show numerous killings at the hands of paramilitary and state-backed groups between 11 and 13 November. One local human rights group has claimed 59 people have been killed, while some local residents and opposition politicians claim an even higher death toll.
Because Washington backs the current Haitian government, however, you won’t have heard too much about this in the mainstream media.
A history of resistance and repression
A seaside community, La Saline has long been a hotbed of resistance to the country’s right-wing politicians. In 1957, Haitian military forces attacked the neighborhood’s residents because it had supported leftist leader Daniel Fignolé. On 11 September 1987, paramilitary and army forces conducted a massacre of churchgoers in La Saline opposed to the right-wing ‘neo-Duvalierists’ in power. The neighborhood was also targeted consistently under the coup regimes of Raoul Cédras (1991-1994) and Gérard Latortue (2004-2006). The latter led to over a decade of UN occupation. And in late 2016, when government forces attacked demonstrators with tear gas in the community, three babies reportedly suffocated to death.
La Saline is the location of the ruins of St. John Bosco, the parish of former progressive president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. An ex-priest, he was twice overthrown: first in a CIA-backed coup in 1991, and then by a US-backed coup in 2004 – both events resulting in the deaths of thousands of people. The parish is well known as the site of the 1987 massacre; and for years, its ruins have served as the starting point for protests that then wind around the capital, with countless people then coming out from Delmas, Cite Soleil, Bèl Air and other neighborhoods.
Link to tweet
The latest round of violence began on 17 October when police allegedly killed protesters. And police continued throughout the month to intensify intimidation tactics against protesters:
On 31 October, a funeral for murdered protesters took place in the Port-au-Prince popular neighborhood of Bèl Air. Police reportedly opened fire, leading to a new round of state killings and protests. And mourners in the funeral were briefly trapped.
Protesters responded by blocking major intersections in the neighborhood of Bèl Air.
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The state, on the other hand, has responded to the protests with brutal force, mobilizing new fast-reaction forces which allegedly include a mercenary contingent. As I have documented in extensive detail, right-wing paramilitary groups were directly inserted into the country’s police force after the US-backed coup in 2004. Predictably, the country’s police force has since become a hotbed for right-wing thugs:
More:
https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2018/12/19/us-backed-haitian-government-agents-accused-of-conducting-massacre/
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