Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti

Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) (in French: Front pour l'Avancement et le Progres Haitien) was a paramilitary death squad organized in Haiti in mid-1993 to terrorize the Haitian people by murder, public beatings, arson raids on poor neighborhoods, and severing limbs by machete. Its goal was to undermine the supporters of the popular Catholic priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who served less than eight months as Haiti's president before being deposed, on 29 September 1991, by a coup in which many hundreds of his supporters were massacred, and thousands more fled to the Dominican Republic or left by sea for the U.S., which was forced to deal with a severe refugee problem in Florida.

In an article published in The Nation in 1994, American investigative journalist Allan Nairn asserted that he had discovered definitive links between FRAPH and the U.S. CIA and DIA.[1] In an article in the January 8-15, 1996 issue of The Nation Nairn wrote:

This information comes from interviews in Haiti and the United States with military, paramilitary and intelligence officials, including Green Beret commanders and also from internal documents from the U.S. and Haitian armies. Pieces of the story also come from Constant himself, who called me from his Maryland jail cell last September and again on December 7, shortly before he was due to be deported to Haiti. Constant, who has said that he started the group that became FRAPH at the urging of the Defense Intelligence Agency -- an account confirmed last year by a U.S. official who worked with him -- now says that even after the U.S. occupation got under way in September 1994, "other people from my organization were working with the D.I.A.," aiding in operations directed against "subversive activities."[2]

When Nairn tried to follow up (Constant insisted on a face-to-face meeting), the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service denied him access, explaining that Constant had had a change of heart and no longer wanted to talk.[3]

Aristide supporters have praised Nairn's report as proof of U.S. hostility to the deposed president and a self-serving foreign policy with regards to the island. However, his claims are controversial, given the fact that the Clinton administration supported Aristide to the point that he was granted asylum in the U.S. and was restored to the presidency in Haiti in 1994 through U.S. military intervention in the name of democratic restoration.

External link

• "Our Payroll, Haitian Hit" (Allan Nairn, The Nation, October 9, 1995)