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Haiti MILITARY SPENDING AND FOREIGN ASSISTANCE
Budgetary irregularities have impeded assessments of
Haiti's
expenditures on national defense and the police forces.
Throughout much of the Duvalier era, significant portions
of the
nation's security budget either went unrecorded or
disappeared in
a maze of interdepartmental transfers directed by
officials in
the Presidential Palace. Therefore, it was difficult to
judge how
these payments affected Haiti's economy. Defense
expenditures
that were recorded were generally modest. Moreover,
because of
Haiti's convoluted politics, it is impossible to determine
whether the money allocated for defense ever benefited the
nation's army or police force. Undetermined amounts were
undoubtedly siphoned off by corrupt individuals.
Haiti's defense expenditures grew slowly in the 1970s
and the
1980s. Some efforts in the late 1970s to modernize the
military,
especially the air corps, coupled with the Duvalier
regime's
growing sense of insecurity led to increased expenditures.
After
that period, however, military spending remained constant
at
about US$30 million a year. Between 1975 and 1985,
military
spending averaged about 8 percent of government
expenditures, or
between 1.2 percent and 1.9 percent of the gross national
product
(GNP--see Glossary;
table 13, Appendix A).
In the twentieth century, the United States has been
the
primary source of foreign military support in terms of
matériel
and financing. Moderate levels of military expenditure and
a
marginal amount of foreign influence on Haiti's national
security
reflected the deinstitutionalization of the Haitian armed
forces
that took place after the 1950s.
The United States occupation resulted in a technically
competent and logistically well-equipped Haitian military
that
was really a national constabulary. United States military
missions to Haiti during World War II, the 1950s, and the
early
1960s helped to maintain links between the two countries;
and,
despite François Duvalier's displeasure with United States
efforts to modernize the Haitian armed forces, he agreed
to
several purchases of military equipment and services from
Washington. Between 1964 and 1970, these purchases
included a
number of aging aircraft, the overhaul of all five Haitian
F-51s,
a mix of small arms, and a number of patrol boats. By the
early
1970s, the newly created Leopard Corps had become the
focus of
procurement efforts, and Washington openly approved
private arms
sales and training programs. Overall, between 1950 and
1977 the
United States provided an estimated US$3.4 million in
military
aid and training for 610 Haitian students in the United
States.
During the late 1970s, Haiti acquired small arms from
other
countries. The aircraft were never put to use because of
chronic
training deficiencies and maintenance problems; still,
when the
regime encountered difficulties in the early to mid-1980s,
it
grounded much of the Air Corps and removed its ordnance to
prevent bombing runs on the Presidential Palace.
In the 1980s, the United States intermittently provided
aid
and assistance in support of Haitian security needs
through
credits or commercial military sales, a Military
Assistance
Program (MAP), and an International Military Education and
Training Program (IMET). Commercial sales of military
goods,
primarily crowd-control equipment, increased substantially
in the
last two years of Jean-Claude Duvalier's regime; they
amounted to
US$3.2 million in 1985. Earlier in the 1980s, the United
States
had sustained a Foreign Military Sales (FMS) financing
program
for Haiti that amounted to about US$300,000 a year.
Expenditures
on the IMET program ranged from US$150,000 to US$250,000 a
year.
About 200 Haitian students benefited from the IMET from
1980 to
1985.
Military assistance from the United States came to a
halt
when the elections of 1987 failed. The United States also
cut off
resources to upgrade the nation's justice and police
system,
although some funding for narcotics-control efforts
continued. In
1989 only an IMET training program was likely to receive
funding
from the United States. Washington was also considering,
however,
some support for efforts to disarm Duvalierist forces.
Data as of December 1989
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