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Haiti THE ROLE OF THE ARMED FORCES
Haiti's defense traditionally has fallen victim to
political
vagaries. A readiness for battle and the initiation of
defenserelated engineering projects in the first two decades of
the
nineteenth century turned out to be costly preparation for
conflict against phantom armies. The engineering projects
included construction of the citadel of La Ferrière in
northern
Haiti. Soon afterward, Haiti turned its attention toward
the rest
of the island of Hispaniola (La Isla Española), which
Haiti
controlled between 1822 and 1844. Controlling the whole
island,
however, drained the national treasury and induced torpor
in the
battle-hardened veterans of the wars of independence.
The gap between Haiti's fears and its military
capabilities
widened. The army lost institutional coherence and its
ability to
pursue missions of national defense. The only thing that
assured
the nation's safety until the twentieth century was the
jealousy
among the great powers--France, Germany, and, by the turn
of the
century, the United States. Washington's increasing
interest in
Haiti prompted the United States Navy to deploy to the
country's
ports fifteen times between 1876 and 1913 in order to
protect
American lives and property.
The United States Marines occupied the country in 1915.
They
formulated a policy designed to ensure domestic law and
order
that the Garde d'Haïti was given the responsibility of
implementing. This concern with internal law and order,
rather
than with external security, endured throughout the
twentieth
century.
Haiti is a party to a number of international
agreements,
including the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal
Assistance (the
Rio Treaty), the Charter of the Organization of American
States,
and the earlier Act of Chapultepec (1945). The nation's
security
concerns regarding neighboring Cuba and the Dominican
Republic
have been viewed since World War II within the broader
framework
of United States strategic interests in the Caribbean. The
fact
that the FAd'H deployed relatively few of its units along
the
Dominican border, despite a history of conflicts with its
neighbor, reflects Haiti's limited national security
concerns.
Cuban and other external threats have had little impact
on
Haiti's security. The Duvaliers' tight control eliminated
all
Marxist influences in the country. It was not until 1986
that a
communist party, the Unified Haitian Communist Party
(Parti
Unifié Communiste Haïtien PUCH), openly operated in the
country.
Cuba helped some Haitian refugees travel to Florida in the
1980s,
but its overall interest in Haitian affairs has been
unclear. The
severity of Haiti's political and economic crises, along
with the
high profile of the United States in the region, has
limited
involvement by other countries in Haitian affairs.
Threats to Haiti's internal security, however, have
been
numerous during the past four decades. Between 1968 and
1970, the
government repulsed three invasions supported by exiled
Haitians.
In 1970 the Coast Guard mutinied. The Coast Guard's five
ships,
low on fuel and ammunition, went into exile at the United
States
military base at Guantánamo, Cuba. In the early 1980s,
Haitian
military forces and members of the VSN defeated a small
exile
force on the Ile de la Tortue (Tortuga Island). An
airplane
dropped a bomb on the National Palace in 1982, and a car
bomb
exploded nearby in 1983. Exile groups, however, never
posed a
significant military challenge to the army and the VSN.
The real
challenge to these forces came in the popular domestic
disturbances that developed after 1984.
After the collapse of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the
FAd'H
developed an agenda to exert national political
leadership, to
restore public order, and to gain control over the VSN and
other
paramilitary groups, but carrying out this program proved
difficult, given Haiti's political, economic, and foreign
policy
situations.
The main mission of Haiti's armed forces in the late
1980s
continued to be internal security. After 1986, however,
this
mission regularly conflicted with the national leadership
role of
the FAd'H. Generational and political differences among
officers
and a scarcity of resources for the military led to
chronic
instability that culminated in military coups. These coups
caused
the government to change hands four times in 1988. A fifth
coup
in early 1989, however, failed to topple the government.
The two
most important problems that the FAd'H had to face were,
first, a
divided senior military command and, second, suspicious
junior
officers and NCO personnel. These problems became apparent
in
1988 when Avril ousted Namphy and subsequently dismissed a
number
of senior officers. The degree to which NCOs may have been
manipulated in this process and the extent to which lower
army
echelons had begun to shape their own political attitudes
caused
some observers to doubt the military's future as an
institution.
The challenges facing the FAd'H in the late 1980s were
more
political than military. The largest and most immediate
questions
revolved around the institution's ability to govern Haiti
during
a period of political transition and modernization. It
remained
unclear, in mid-1989, how and when the military planned to
transfer power to a legitimate civilian government.
Another
important problem concerned the personal political
ambitions of
some army commanders. It was also unclear how the FAd'H
would
respond to these challenges because the institution had
not
demonstrated viable national political capabilities. The
FAd'H
was ill-prepared for this broad new role in national life
because
François Duvalier had severely limited its role in
government
affairs.
Other security-related problems included narcotics
trafficking. United States officials have expressed
concern over
Haiti's role as a major transshipment area for narcotics,
mainly
Colombian cocaine bound for the United States. This role
apparently expanded after Jean-Claude's fall. The United
States
Drug Enforcement Administration opened an office in
Port-au-
Prince in October 1987 to help Haitian authorities control
drug
trafficking; however, the lack of a professional police
force in
Haiti hindered these efforts. The FAd'H appeared
ambivalent
toward the narcotics issue because drug-related corruption
reportedly involved hundreds of members of the officer
corps and
because some officers resented pressure from Washington.
Avril,
however, attempted to placate United States concerns by
dismissing some officers linked to drug trafficking. The
most
prominent among the dismissed officers was Paul, a former
commander of the Dessalines Battalion, who was indicted in
March
1988 by a Florida grand jury on charges of cocaine
distribution.
Haiti had signed an extradition treaty with the United
States,
but the agreement did not cover narcotics-related
offenses, so
Paul never faced trial on the charges.
Paul's continued service in the army posed a political
problem, and Avril asked him to retire. In November 1988,
however, Paul died mysteriously, possibly a victim of
poisoning.
Paul's death removed a major narcotics figure and a
potential
threat to Avril's political power.
Unstable and unstructured civilian politics and
institutions
also undermined Haiti's stability. Some Duvalierists
sought to
use the armed forces completely or partially to restore
the
ancien régime. At the same time, more democracy-oriented
civilian
groups, all of which lacked strong institutional bases,
continued
to be suspicious of the army's political leadership. The
weak
economy and the international media's criticism of Haitian
affairs resulted in financial and public-relations
problems for
the army; and, because Haiti's political environment
remained
volatile and because the army did not always appear to be
in
control of the country, Haiti faced more unrest and the
possible
development of insurgency movements. On the one hand,
Haiti's
armed forces was still one of the few institutions of
national
magnitude, but, on the other hand, the armed forces
suffered from
serious institutional deterioration and diminished
cohesion. In
1989 the military was struggling to provide political
leadership
at a time when it faced its own disintegration.
Data as of December 1989
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