The 1994 Military Operations and Their Context In Haiti.

Situation Before the Military Operation.
A flood of migrants departing Haiti for foreign shores in unseaworthy vessels furnished the immediate cause for recent United States and international involvement in this poor Caribbean country.

Increasing despair and perceptions of personal danger among growing numbers of Haitians, however, reflected deeper causes that combined in 1994 to precipitate the flood of migrants. Haiti’s history of political instability, brutal repression, and economic hardship records these deeper causes.

Haiti was the first Caribbean state to achieve independence, which occurred in 1804 after ex-slave Toussaint l’Ouverture’s rebellion brought an end to French rule. Since that time, the country has never enjoyed a prolonged period of internal calm without outside intervention and has never developed institutions capable of sustained democratic government. Between 1915 and 1934, the United States occupied Haiti to quell disorder and protect strategic interests along the Windward Passage, the strait between Cuba and Haiti that leads to the Panama Canal. In 1920, the United States launched Operation Uplift, an ambitious program involving construction of roads, bridges, a dam, electrical and communications systems, hospitals, civic buildings, parks, and sanitation facilities. Until 1934, when the last United States forces left, Haitians enjoyed the benefits of these investments in infrastructure.

Soon thereafter, however, turmoil returned, and a series of dictators used the army—which had been established and armed by United States marines early in the occupation—to put down political opponents. The most repressive of these was Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who gained power in 1957, ruled for 14 years, and then left control over the government in 1971 to his son, Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier. Although the latter Duvalier’s rule occasioned some liberalization of the government, Haiti had taken no significant steps toward democracy when he fled into exile in 1986 during an uprising. The army chief at the time, Lieutenant General Henri Namphy assumed power, but despite the enactment in 1987 of a democratic constitution, Haiti experienced a series of coups that prevented its implementation.

Then on December 16, 1990, in a presidential election deemed by observers to have been free and peaceful, the Reverend Jean-Bertrand Aristide captured an overwhelming majority of votes. Immediately after assuming office on February 7, 1991, the new, populist President announced a major reorganization of the army. The wealthy businessmen who had controlled Haitian politics since the Baby Doc years felt threatened by President Aristide and his followers, and they supported a violent military coup led by Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras on 30 September 1991. They also approved the installation of Joseph Nerette, a supreme court justice, as provisional president. More than three years would pass before this latest and most
disturbing military coup could be undone. In 1993, the junta rebuffed a series of diplomatic efforts to restore Aristide to power. On 16 June, the United Nations Security Council declared an oil and arms embargo on Haiti. On 3 July at Governors Island, New York, General Cedras and President Aristide signed an agreement calling for Cedras to resign and Aristide to return by 30 October. Pursuant to the Governors Island plan for the return of Aristide, about 200 lightly armed United States troops arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital city, on 11 October. The ship carrying the soldiers, the U.S.S. Harlan County, turned around that day and left Haitian waters after a small group of gunmen demonstrated in the harbor. In response to this episode and to two days of violence instigated by the same group of gunmen, the United Nations on 13 October declared renewed sanctions against Haiti. The next day, assassins killed Justice Minister Guy Malary, an Aristide supporter, and two days later still, a group of international human rights monitors felt compelled to leave the country.

On 19 October, the United Nations embargo on arms, military and police supplies, and oil shipments began, with United States and Canadian naval vessels and aircraft enforcing the embargo. The United States also froze assets and revoked visas of junta members. At the end of 1993, the scheduled return of Aristide had not occurred. During the first half of 1994, a steadily growing number of Haitians boarded boats and set out for the United States. Even as the international community was imposing ever-tighter trade sanctions against the de facto Haitian leaders, those leaders presided over an increase in politically motivated intimidation and repression against Aristide supporters. The first instrument of repression was the Haitian armed forces, or Forces Armees d’Haiti (FAd’H), which had constitutional responsibility for public security and law enforcement and which included a police force. The second was a group of paramilitary personnel in civilian clothes known as “attaches.” The third was a group of provincial section chiefs known as “Tons Tons Macoutes,” whom military regulations declared to be adjuncts to the FAd’H. The fourth, known as the Revolutionary Front for Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), was a group that had emerged in 1993 and that since that time had opened offices in most towns and villages and
infiltrated poorer neighborhoods.

On 8 May 1994, President Clinton announced that the United States would not refuse entry to Haitian boat people without hearing their claims for asy Haliutmi.an migrants would be permitted to claim asylum aboard United States vessels or in other countries. On 29 June, in response to the growing number of migrants, the United States opened a processing center at Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. On 5 July, the still rood ofisi Hng flaitian boat people impelled a change in United States policy: Haitian migrants would be returned to Haiti or taken to “safe havens” at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in Panama, and elsewhere. Two days later, the United States anU.S.S.nounced that the Wasp, with 1,800 marines on board, would sail into the waters off Haiti and practice drills required for invasion.

On 31 July 1994 the United Nations Security Council cleared the way for an invasion. In Resolution 940, it voted 12 to 0—with two abstentions—to authorize member states to form a multinational force under unified command and control and, in this framework, to use all necessary means to facilitate the departure from Haiti of the military leadership, consistent with the Governors Island Agreement, the prompt return of the legitimately elected President and the restoration of the legitimate authorities of the Government of Haiti, and to establish and maintain a secure and stable environment that will permit implementation of the Governors Island agreement . . . The month of August resulted only in further tension, as Father Jean-Marie Vincent, an Aristide loyalist and prominent Catholic priest, was murdered by gunmen in Port-au-Prince.


In September of 1994, Haiti captured the full attention of the United States and the world. President Clinton stated in a nationally televised address on 15 September that the United States would use military force to oust the Cedras regime from power. On 17 September, in a final attempt to persuade the junta to step down without massive bloodshed, President Clinton dispatched a team consisting of former President Jimmy Carter, General Colin L. Powell, and Senator Sam Nunn to Haiti. On 18 September, in the very hour that paratroopers from the 82d Airborne Division were flying toward designated drop zones within Haiti, the junta blinked. The Haitian military leaders agreed to step down when the Parliament passed an amnesty law or on 15 October, whichever came first.

Far from trusting the restoration of President Aristide to another promise by the junta, United States forces entered Haiti in large numbers beginning 19 September. These troops led the United States contingent of the multinational force that had been formed pursuant to Security Council Resolution 940. This was D-Day of Operation Uphold Democracy.