27 May 2005
WikiLeaks: DOS: Haiti Ambassador Foley to Washington re. Haitian Private Sector Panicked by Increasing Violence
This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PORT AU PRINCE 001487
SIPDIS
WHA/EX PLEASE PASS USOAS
SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD
DEPT FOR DS/IP/WHA
DS/DSS/ITA
DSERCC
E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/25/2014
TAGS: PGOV PREL ASEC ECON EWWT
SUBJECT: HAITIAN PRIVATE SECTOR PANICKED BY INCREASING
VIOLENCE
REF: A. PAP 1373
B. PAP 1027
Classified By: Ambassador James B. Foley, reasons 1.4 (B) and (D)
1. (C) Summary: Fritz Mevs, a member of one of Haiti's
richest families and a well-connected member of the private
sector elite, told Poloff on May 13 that business leaders are
exasperated by the lack of security in the vital port and
industrial zone areas of Port-au-Prince and are allegedly
arming local police with long-guns and ammunition in an
effort to ensure security for their businesses and employees.
Kidnappings and carjackings are frightening Haiti's small but
critical cadre of mid-level employees who work in the
industrial park and port, and workers have threatened to
strike unless the security situation improves, Mevs said.
(Note: This area is either off-limits or LAV-travel only for
the embassy. End Note.) Mevs said that the recent killing
of gang leader Labaniere is part of the problem, as he used
to keep rival gangs out of the area. Mevs also said private
sector protests against the IGOH for the lack of security
were misguided and called for a media campaign to mobilize
opposition against what he described as the true scourge of
Haiti: a cabal of drug-traffickers, Haitian elite and IGOH
insiders conspiring with gangs and corrupt cops to undermine
peace and democracy in the country. In response to embassy
and private sector prodding, MINUSTAH is now formulating a
plan to protect the area. End summary.
Background
----------
2. (C) Fritz Mevs is a prominent member of one of Haiti's
richest families. He leads a group of local investors who own
and operate in Port-au-Prince the Terminal of Varreux (the
private terminal that handles 30% of Haiti's imports), the
petroleum storage of WINECO (which encompasses Haiti's
largest propane gas storage center) and the SHODECOSA
Warehouse Complex (where, among other things, 90% of the
humanitarian cargo donated to Haiti is stored). The Mevs
family has always enjoyed financial control of important
Haitian economic assets and has shown an ability to roll with
(and have influence upon) any government that allows them to
exploit those assets.
Port Area Suffering from Insecurity
-----------------------------------
3. (C) Mevs told Poloff on May 13 that the security situation
in and around the port and industrial zone area was
untenable. The district is surrounded by the gang havens of
Bel Air, La Saline and Cite Soleil, and kidnappers and
carjackers target traffic along the vital transport link
(Route Nationale #1) between the port and the Industrial
Park. Mevs said the crime threat has already forced several
businesses to close (including the Embassy's GSO operations),
while employees of others are threatening to strike unless
the security situation improves. Among those Mevs cited as
caught in the midst of the "urban warfare" are: CEMEX, TOTAL,
DINHASA, TEXACO, MADSEN Import-Export, SOGENER, and others.
Mevs said absenteeism among employees is at an all-time high
and the flow of essential commodities (oil, gasoline, cement,
rice, steel, etc.) transiting through the facility is
adversely affected. Continued disruption, he said, will soon
result in shortages, inflation, and potentially a collapse in
support for the transition government. (Note: The Director
General of the National Port Authority has separately
confirmed Mevs account of the situation outside of the port.
While security inside the port is acceptable, just outside of
the gates criminals operate freely. Gunfire is common and
workers fear for their lives going to and from work every
day. He said MINUSTAH, while present, does not provide any
real security for employees going into or out of the port.
End Note.)
4. (C) Mevs showed Poloff a pile of letters sent from the
Terminal authority and several of its members to MINUSTAH
SRSG Valdes, Prime Minister Latortue, HNP Director General
Leon Charles, and Minister of Justice Gousse over the last
two months. The letters describe a lengthy list of incidents
and vulnerabilities - including pipeline sabotage, criminal
fires, shots fired at offloading vessels, kidnappings and
murders - and solicit additional, permanent security, often
in quite desperate language ("we may not hold on for long").
The Terminal's large army of security staff are outgunned by
the heavy weapons fired by the bandits, the letters say, and
must stand helplessly at the gate, unable to intervene when
those entering or exiting are hijacked, robbed, shot and at
times, killed, outside the jurisdiction of the Terminal
fences. According to Mevs, although MINUSTAH has on occasion
parked armored vehicles near the Terminal with some success,
he said criminals regularly force the tanks to move (by
burning tires or fecal matter nearby), and as soon as the
vehicles depart, the rampage continues.
5. (C) Other embassy contacts confirm Mevs' description of
the deteriorated security situation in the port area. A
political advisor to the Mayor of Cite Soleil told PolOff on
May 17 that MINUSTAH was proving to be a poor substitute for
Labaniere, the gang leader from the Boston neighborhood of
Cite Soleil closest to the industrial zone who was killed on
March 30, allegedly in a plot directed by rival pro-Lavalas
gang leader Dread Wilme. The advisor said that Labaniere (who
reportedly received money from businesses in the district for
protection) managed to defend the commercial zone in a way
that periodic MINUSTAH checkpoints have not. He said bandits
were undaunted by UN vehicles sometimes parked along Route
Nationale #1 and that MINUSTAH troops (who, he said, rarely
set foot outside of their vehicles) were unable to identify
the bandits from amongst the general populace as Labaniere
had done.
6. (C) Meanwhile, a MINUSTAH official told PolOff on May 18
that the Cite Soleil operation begun on March 31 was indeed
weakening due to Brazilian and Jordanian troop rotations that
could last 4-8 weeks. Permanent checkpoints along Route
Nationale and other areas surrounding Cite Soleil have been
replaced by rotating outposts concentrated primarily north of
the commercial district, leaving much of the area described
by Mevs unprotected. Another MINUSTAH commander confirmed on
May 20 that UN troops were drawing down, to be replaced by a
joint HNP-CIVPOL strategy that would effectively block a
critical section of the highway to all vehicular traffic
(septel).
Embassy Port-au-Prince's Response
---------------------------------
7. (C) Charge met with UNSRSG Valdes on May 14 to encourage
him to dramatically increase MINUSTAH's security presence in
the area. Valdes seemed genuinely surprised that the
situation was so acute. Following the meeting Charge
encouraged the French ambassador to reiterate our message
with Valdes. In response Valdes instructed MINUSTAH military
and CIVPOL leaders to develop a plan in coordination with the
private sector, who rejected an initial proposal as
unworkable. On May 19 Ambassador Foley wrote to Ambassador
Valdes to protest three examples of MINUSTAH passivity in
response to violence against American citizens. Ambassador
Foley again underscored the need for a swift, aggressive
response to criminal elements in a conversation with Valdes
on May 20. Valdes thanked the Ambassador for the concrete
examples described in the Ambassador's letter. He said that
he had often heard reports but never had details with which
he could confront MINUSTAH military and police leaders.
Valdes promised a more robust response from MINUSTAH.
Separately, a MINUSTAH military officer reported to the Core
Group on May 20 that they were preparing to present another
strategy to business representatives on May 21. Ambassador
Foley warned the Core Group that MINUSTAH's stand-down in
Cite Soleil put the elections at risk, and that the
insecurity around the industrial zone risked undermining what
is left of the Haitian economy.
Private Sector Arming the Police
--------------------------------
8. (C) In response to MINUSTAH's unresponsiveness, Mevs said,
a group of merchants from the Terminal conducted an
unofficial survey of the HNP's weapons inventory and
requirements. The report (on official HNP letterhead
indicating some form of HNP cooperation in the effort)
suggests, for example, that the Port-au-Prince station has
(2) M-14s, (2) T-65s, and (2) M-1s, and needed (6) M-14s, (8)
T-65s, and (4) Galils. (Note: Embassy has not independently
confirmed any of the numbers from the report. End note). The
undated report shows the HNP has the following country-wide
inventory:
-- (65) 12-guage rifles
-- (11) M-14
-- (15) T-65
-- (15) M-1
-- 82 functioning vehicles
-- 179 radios
and the following needs:
-- (200) T-65
-- (127) galils
-- (120) M-14
-- (43) M-1
-- (73) 12-guage rifles
-- 160 vehicles
-- 249 radios
9. (C) Mevs said some business owners have already begun to
purchase weapons and ammunition from the street and
distribute them to local police officials in exchange for
regular patrols. Mevs claimed, for example, that Reginald
Boulos, President of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce, had
already distributed arms to the police and had called on
others to do so in order to provide cover to his own actions.
Mevs says that of the roughly 150 business owners in the
area, probably 30 have already provided some kind of direct
assistance (including arms, ammunition, or other materiel) to
the police, and the rest are looking to do so soon. Contacts
of the Econ Counselor report from time to time of discussions
among private sector leaders to fund and arm their own
private sector armies. The AmCham Board of Directors at one
point discussed informally giving non-lethal assistance to
police stations, such as furniture and microwave ovens for
police stations, but decided against doing so for fear that
anything given to the police would quickly be stolen.
10. (C) Mevs defended the idea of the private sector arming
the police in general, but he lamented the haphazard manner
in which many of his colleagues seemed to be handing out
weapons with little control. He said they were "wasting their
money" by giving arms to police without knowing if they were
"dirty or clean" and with no measures in place to make sure
the arms were not simply re-sold. He also complained that
funneling the arms secretly would only serve to reinforce
rumors that the elite were creating private armies. Mevs said
he was approaching the Embassy in order to find a way for
these private sector initiatives to be incorporated into
established inventory and control systems within the HNP. He
described his conception of a program in which the private
sector could purchase guns and ammunition on the open market
and turn the equipment over to the HNP in exchange for a
receipt and a guarantee that a certain number of
appropriately-armed HNP would be assigned to a requested
area. He said, however, that he did not trust either MINUSTAH
or the HNP to properly control the issuance of weapons and
hoped that the U.S. would oversee the program.
Haiti's "new enemy"
-------------------
11. (C) In response to the May 11 protest (supported by some
private sector leaders such as Charles Baker) to demand that
the IGOH address the security situation, Mevs said their
target was wrong. He said protesters should mobilize against
Haiti's real enemy and the true source of insecurity: a small
nexus of drug-dealers and political insiders that control a
network of dirty cops and gangs that not only were
responsible for committing the kidnappings and murders, but
were also frustrating the efforts of well-meaning government
officials and the international community to confront them.
He asserted, for example, that some incidents were engineered
specifically to frustrate efforts by the IGOH to secure a
weapons export license waiver from the Department of State.
Mevs claimed that Colombian drug-traffickers (and allegedly
the brother of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez) had allied
with a small cabal of powerful and connected individuals,
including Youri Latortue, Gary Lissade, lawyer Andre Pasquet,
Michel Brunache (Chief of Staff to President Alexandre), Jean
Mosanto Petit (aka Toto Borlette, owner of the unofficial
Haitian lottery and large swaths of Port-au-Prince property),
and Dany Toussaint, to create a criminal enterprise that
thrives on - and generates - instability. (Note: We have no
corroborating information linking Brunache to
drug-trafficking. He, along with Latortue, Pasquet, and
Justice Minister Gousse. all worked in Gary Lissade's law
firm.)
12. (C) Mevs suggested that some recent kidnappings
(including that of Dr. Michel Theard - ref B) were actually
targeted crimes meant to send a message to the people within
the IGOH that the network was calling the shots. (Comment:
This obviously contradicts his claim that IGOH insiders are
involved. End Comment.) Mevs claimed that Dr. Theard had
been passed between several supposedly independent gangs,
thereby illustrating how the gangs were actually joined
together by a "central node." It was against this network,
Mevs argued, that well-meaning Haitians should direct their
ire, and he called for a mass popular mobilization against
this unnamed (but apparently obvious) cabal: the "new common
enemy following the departure of President Aristide."
Comment
-------
13. (C) Fritz Mevs undoubtedly has a strong personal interest
in convincing us that the port district is in danger and he
is no doubt biased against those individuals he names who
work against his interests. Mevs himself is a core member of
what might easily be described as a rival network of
influence competing for control of Haiti against the cast of
characters he has described. Furthermore, it is impossible to
imagine that Mevs has managed to protect his interests over
the years without making some accommodation with potentially
hostile government principals and the associated gang leaders
at his doorstep (indeed his silence on Aristide's continuing
role in the violence is curious). While we cannot confirm
whether the alleged cabal of political insiders allied with
South American narco-traffickers is controlling the gangs, we
have seen indications of alliances between drug dealers,
criminal gangs and political forces that could threaten to
make just such a scenario possible via the election of
narco-funded politicians, unless we are able to severely
disrupt the flow of drugs into and out of Haiti. One thing
is clear: it is vital that our plan to equip the HNP through
strict controls go forward immediately. In the meantime, we
will deliver strong messages to Charles and the IGOH (and our
private sector contacts) against private delivery of arms to
the HNP. End Comment.
FOLEY