Travis Ross
This Two Part Series Was Originally Published on Canada Files
Part I
Documents obtained by The Canada Files show that a controversial Haitian human rights group, the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), receives Canadian government funding through a non-profit legal advocacy organization.
Avocats sans Frontières Canada (ASFC) got the funding for a program in Haiti named “Access to Judicial Services” for more than $19 million CAD, through Global Affairs Canada. ASFC has long had a partnership with the RNDDH, being one of 25 organizational partners for Haiti programs. Under the “Access to Judicial Services” program, one of three ASFC projects, “Access to Justice and Fight Against Impunity in Haiti”, is where the undisclosed amount money was given to the RNDDH. Global Affairs Canada confirmed it is aware that the RNDDH got funding from ASFC’s project, when reached out to for comment.
Providing funding for the RNDDH for “advocacy activities” should cause alarm bells for those familiar with the RNDDH’s history and the Canadian government’s role in the 2004 coup d’etats against Haiti’s democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
In a written response, ASFC says it “provides financial support to RNDDH, enabling them to continue their work documenting serious human rights violations and the way the justice system is processing such cases in accordance with the rule of law”. ASFC would not disclose the amount of funding given to the RNDDH, citing confidentiality.
ASFC also explained that this funding allows RNDDH to “to provide legal support to survivors of gender-based violence and to pursue their advocacy activities.” The RNDDH’s “advocacy activities” are truly infamous, and coincide with events just after the 2004 coup against Aristide, which Canada played a key role in.
Canada’s role in 2004 coup against Aristide
Then-Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had won the 2000 election with almost 92 per cent of the popular vote. The election was a resounding victory for Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas (FL), who won local elections across Haiti and 16 out of 17 senate seats.
On February 29, 2004, a coup d’etat backed by the governments of the United States, Canada,, and France forced Aristide from office, with Canada playing a key role in organizing it.
The first meeting, referred to as “Ottawa Initiative on Haiti”, was held at the federal government’s conference center on Meech Lake near Canada’s capital, on January 31 and February 1, 2003. This secretive meeting laid the groundwork for a military intervention that would occur a year later by U.S. and Canadian forces against Aristide.
Canada provided 50 soldiers to secure Haiti’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport. Aristide was abducted by U.S. marines and flown out of this “secured” airport and left in the Central African Republic.
The coup had a devastating effect on Haitian society.
A 2006 Lancet study revealed that “during the 22-month period of the U.S.-backed Interim Government, 8,000 people were murdered in the greater Port-au Prince area alone. 35,000 women and girls were raped or sexually assaulted, more than half of the victims were children.”
Mario Joseph, director of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) argues that “if the Lancet cited 8,000 murders in Port-au-Prince between 2004 and 2006, we have to double this number to reflect what happened throughout the country.”
The Canadian-funded human rights group NCHR-Haiti played a key role in the coup against Aristide
Pierre Espérance and the RNDDH played a key role in the coup d’etat that forced democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 2004.
At the time, Espérance’s so-called human rights group was named NCHR-Haiti.
Brian Concannon, a human rights lawyer and director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH), described NCHR-Haiti as a “ferocious critic” of Aristide’s government and an “ally” of the illegal regime. According to Concannon, the Latortue regime “had an agreement with NCHR-Haiti to prosecute anyone the organization denounced.”
“People perceived to support Haiti’s constitutional government or Fanmi Lavalas, the political party of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, [were] systematically persecuted from late February [2004] through the present. In many cases, the de facto government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue is directly responsible for the persecution,” Concannon explained.
NCHR-Haiti “became increasingly politicized and, in the wake of the 2004 coup d’état, it cooperated with the IGH [the Latortue / Boniface regime] in persecuting Lavalas activists,” Concannon later wrote in The Jurist. “The persecution became so flagrant that NCHR-Haiti’s former parent organization, New York-based NCHR, publicly repudiated the Haitian group and asked it to change its name.”
Espérance and NCHR-Haiti then changed their name to the “National Human Rights Defense Network”, or the RNDDH.
Pierre Espérance and the RNDDH manufactured a “massacre” to frame Haiti’s Prime Minister Yvon Neptune
In an open letter sent on October 19, 2006, to Haiti’s Justice Minister René Magloire, human rights lawyer Mario Joseph refers to NCHR-Haiti as an “injustice machine” that was invented through Canadian government funding. Joseph argued that accusations made against FL elected representative Amanus Mayette and former prime minister Yvon Neptune “are political”. Emphasizing that accusations by NCHR-Haiti resulted in “more than a hundred Fanmi Lavalas grassroots activists” being “arrested and detained with no charge, and no trial.”
Joseph and several other human rights lawyers demanded the release of FL political prisoners, including former parliamentarian Amanus Mayette and Prime Minister Yvon Neptune.
The letter also highlights NCHR-Haiti’s role in the Latortue regime’s “tenacious program of vengeance” which caused “caused considerable harm to the political prisoners,” noting that “it was on the basis of a mere [NCHR-Haiti] press release” that Neptune and Mayette were arrested.
In a separate interview, BAI’s Joseph accused the RNDDH of fabricating allegations against three elected FL leaders as part of a “disinformation campaign.” Joseph represented these leaders as a defense lawyer against allegations that they orchestrated a massacre in La Scierie, a neighborhood of Saint Marc in Haiti.
Author Jeb Sprague described the events in La Scierie in his book Paramilitarism and the Assault on Democracy in Haiti, which would be used by Esperance and RNDDH to help create the grounds for his illegal detention by the coup regime.
Sprague describes a coordinated attack where anti-government paramilitary forces attacked police stations across the region of Gonaives in Northern Haiti, in early 2004. After the fall of Gonaives, a smaller group broke away and entered Saint-Marc (La Scierie). This paramilitary squad met up with RAMICOS (Rassemblements des Militants Consequents de la Commune de Saint-Marc). Sprague describes RAMICOS as a “quasi-paramilitary group financed by opposition elites”. RAMICOS and the paramilitaries immediately attacked government buildings and police stations.
A week later, government forces pushed back the paramilitaries and retook Saint-Marc. During this operation, government forces were supported by a local armed defense group named Bale Wouze. Afterwards, RAMICOS forces remained in Saint-Marc.
Following the victory against the paramilitary forces, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune visited Saint-Marc, inspecting the remains of a burned down police station attacked by RAMICOS and other paramilitary forces.
A day after the retaking of Saint-Marc, RAMICOS forces attacked a police station in the neighborhood of La Scierie. A mix of police officers, Bale Wouze members, and citizens of La Scierie defended their neighborhood and successfully pushed back RAMICOS forces. In this firefight, several people were killed, including civilians.
Sprague clearly doesn’t consider the RNDDH to be a credible human rights group, describing it as an “opposition-aligned human rights group”.
Following these events in La Scierie, the RNDDH described the battle as an “Aristide government sanctioned massacre”. The RNDDH had the audacity to demand “immunity for paramilitary financier Judy C. Roy” while blaming Neptune for orchestrating a “genocide” against civilians.
Neptune was jailed and illegally detained. The RNDDH’s accusations against Neptune were a direct cause of his prolonged, illegal detention.
Subsequent investigations by independent investigators and the United-Nations undermined the RNDDH & director Pierre Espérance’s description of events in La Scierie.
A Press for Conversion! article by Kevin Skerritt explained that, following an April 2005 investigation into the violence in Saint Marc, the then-UN Human Rights Expert on Haiti, Louis Joinet, “dismissed accounts of a massacre” and described instead a series of killings in “confrontations” between two armed groups with casualties on both sides.
Joinet’s conclusions were echoed by Thierry Fagart, chief of the UN Mission’s Human Rights division, who also said “since the beginning of the procedure until today, the fundamental rights, according to national and international standards, have not been respected in the case of Mr. Neptune.” Fagart continued, “for me, it is clear that they have never had any legal grounds to prosecute him. From the very beginning until today, all the proceedings against him were illegal.”
Fagart concluded that Haiti’s democratically elected government’s decision to take back Saint-Marc by force was justified. “I think that they were right because they were – I’m not a supporter of Lavalas, I want to make clear that I am not a supporter of Lavalas. But at the same time, it was clear that the legal government was the Aristide government”.
In 2006, Canadian investigative journalist Chris Scott visited Saint Marc. He dismissed NCHR-Haiti (now RNDDH) as a “partisan” group whose allegations against Neptune were nothing more than “conjecture”. He concludes that “given Canada’s unacknowledged role in the overthrow of the Aristide government and its enthusiastic support for the post-coup régime”, Canada’s decision to fund NCHR-Haiti shows “complicity” in the “very partisan game”.
Indeed, within weeks of the allegations launched by NCHR-Haiti against Neptune, the Canadian Embassy in Haiti announced that $100,000 CAD in funding would be allocated to the organization. An investigation by journalist Anthony Fenton revealed NCHR-Haiti applied for over $79,000 CAD for “legal representation for the victims of La Scierie”.
Avocats sans Frontières Canada pretends RNDDH had no role in Neptune’s illegal detention
ASFC published a document titled “Haïti: Guide pratique sur le recours en habeas corpus” (Haiti: A practical guide to recourse in habeas corpus) to their website. The guide was created under the AJULIH project with funding from the Canadian government. The guide is designed to assist Haitian human rights lawyers defend Haitians who are illegally detained.
The only case the document provides as an example of a Haitian whose rights to habeas corpus (in short, the fundamental right in the Constitution that protects against unlawful and indefinite imprisonment) is then-Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune.
The document refers to Neptune’s case without mentioning that his illegal imprisonment was a result of false allegations by Espérance and NCHR-Haiti.
The ASFC document focuses on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruling that the State of Haiti violated Neptune’s human rights.
The IJDH’s summary of the ruling explains that the IACHR found the Haitian State violated “11 different provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights by illegally imprisoning former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune for two years and allowing the case to drag on in the courts for almost two more.”
“The Court criticized nearly every aspect of Haiti’s prosecution of Mr. Neptune”, the summary explained. “It found Mr. Neptune’s 25-month-long detention illegal, and the prison conditions he endured to be inhumane and degrading”.
When asked about the role of their partner organization in the persecution of Neptune, the ASFC avoided commenting, stating that the “Neptune decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights was used in the guide, as it is a decision handed down by a regional instance on abusive pre-trial detention.”
When Solidarity Groups Investigated RNDDH and Pierre Espérance
Several delegations from Haiti legal advocacy and solidarity groups visited Haiti after the 2004 coup to investigate alleged human rights violations there. Their reports concur with the accusations made by the IJDH and BAI regarding Espérance and NCHR-Haiti’s collaboration with the coup government to persecute FL leaders and supporters.
The Quixote Center sent a delegation to Haiti led by retired Caribbean Studies professor Tom Reeves. Upon returning from Haiti, Reeves wrote an article explaining the delegation’s findings in which he described NCHR-Haiti as “completely partisan: anti-Lavalas, anti-Aristide. This is simply not proper for a group calling itself a ‘Haitian Rights’ organization.”
In April 2004, the National Lawyers Guild sent their second delegation to Haiti. One of the report’s eight “Unanimous Statements and Recommendations,” was an unequivocal condemnation of the group: “We condemn the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) in Haiti for not maintaining its impartiality as a human rights organization.”
The Haiti Accompaniment Project (HAP) visited Haiti in June 2004. The HAP delegates were also part of the Haiti Action Committee, based in California.
The HAP report notes that in 2004, the NCHR-Haiti “helped develop support for the coup with exaggerated reports of human rights violations by supporters of the elected government. At the same time, they downplayed or denied the much more massive violations of the de facto regime and its paramilitary allies.”
The report also explains how NCHR-Haiti denounced supporters of Aristide’s government. According to HAP, NCHR-Haiti offered no evidence for the accusations it leveled against FL supporters, resulting in “illegal arrest, incarceration and sometimes the disappearance of the accused.”
The HAP delegation met with a grassroots victims rights group who shared that they were “dismayed that the outside world still looked upon NCHR as a credible independent voice.” They told the delegates that “NCHR was now working hand-in-hand with the post-coup Minister of Justice in carrying out illegal arrests and detentions.”
The HAP delegation concluded bluntly that “they are not [an] independent human rights group.”
Canadian NGOs and Unions parroted Canadian government funded RNDDH propaganda
Despite efforts from Haiti solidarity and legal advocacy groups, the Canadian and US-funded propaganda campaign to frame Aristide’s popular, democratically elected government as tyrannical, was successful.
Several Canadian NGOs, unions, and civil society organizations became staunchly anti-Lavalas as a result of this propaganda.
In a 2005 article, Yves Engler points out that “several Quebec unions that received hundreds of thousands of CIDA dollars for work in Haiti through the Centre International de Solidarité Ouvrière (CISO) passed resolutions condemning Aristide’s alleged anti-union activities.” Engler explained that the FTQ and CSQ union federations and a half dozen NGOs, part of an informal group known as the Concertation Pour Haiti (CPH) “branded Aristide a ‘tyrant’ and his government a ‘dictatorship’ prior to the 2004 coup.
The Canadian government also funded anti-Lavalas media outlets like Alterpresse who repeated NCHR-Haiti/RNDDH propaganda repeatedly.
In his report on La Scierie, Skeritt explained that during the months leading up to the 2004 coup, the Quebec-based L’Association Quebecoise des Organismes de Cooperation Internationale (AQOCI), a network of 53 international aid groups, “became so swept up in the anti-Aristide and anti-government hysteria generated by groups such as NCHR-Haiti” that they issued a press release urging the Canadian government to withdraw all support from the “Lavalas party regime,” and to denounce the Aristide government for its alleged human rights abuses.
Skeritt’s report argued that Rights and Democracy (R&D), a federally-funded organization, “uncritically accepted NCHR-Haiti’s allegations”.
In a 2014 article, Yves Engler explained that “in October 2005 R&D began a $415,000 CIDA-financed project to ‘foster greater civil society participation in Haiti’s national political process.’”
The coordinator of the project, and future director of R&D’s Haiti office, was Danielle Magloire. Magloire was a member of the ‘Council of the Wise’ along with six other individuals from Haiti’s elite, including Dr. Ariel Henry, Haiti’s current dictator backed by Washington and Canada.
Henry was selected to lead Haiti by the US government and the CORE group via a tweet containing a short statement of support. The CORE group is made up of representatives of the United Nations, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Spain, the European Union, the United States, and the Organization of American States.
The Council of the Wise appointed Gérard Latortue as interim prime minister after the coup ousted the democratically elected president, Aristide.
According to Engler, “in mid-July, 2005, Magloire issued a statement on behalf of the ‘Council of Wise People’ saying any media that gives voice to ‘bandits’ (code for Lavalas supporters) should be shut down. She also asserted that Lavalas should be banned from upcoming elections”.
Magloire’s rise to prominence is due to funding from the Canadian government. In their book Canada in Haiti, authors Yves Engler and Anthony Fenton pointed out that Magloire’s ascension to the Council of the Wise “came largely from her positions at ENFOFANM and CONAP”. The authors argue that these “CIDA-funded feminist organizations would not have grown to prominence without international funding.”
More recently, Magloire is credited as an editor for a March 2, 2018, ASFC publication titled “Mémoire portant sur la lutte contre l’impunité en Haiti” (Memoire of the Struggle Against Impunity in Haiti) as part of the AJULIH project.
Magloire is also a vice-chair of FOKAL’s Board of Directors, another ASFC partner in Haiti.
FOKAL was founded by George Soros and the Open Society Foundation. According to Kim Ives, FOKAL “played a small but visible role in late 2003 and early 2004” by characterizing the Aristide’s elected government as “hostile:” to human rights. At the time, FOKAL was receiving $4 million USD each year, from the Open Society Foundation.
Further corruption accusations against RNDDH director Pierre Espérance
It is clear Pierre Espérance and the RNDDH are willing to take funding from foreign governments in order to persecute political rivals in Haiti. Around the time of the 2004 coup, the target was the Fanmi Lavalas political party and its leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide – wildly popular among Haitians generally, and opposed to the neoliberal policies Washington and Canada wanted to impose on Haiti.
As veteran Haitian activist and writer André Charlier argued, the “RNDDH is a political organization hiding behind the facade of a human rights organization.” A facade that is maintained through funding from the NED, the Open Society Foundation, and the Canadian government.
During the 2009-10 period, Washington began shifting its support away from the sector of the bourgeoisie and economic elite who had facilitated the 2004 coup d’etat, in favor of neo-Duvalierists who had recently coalesced under the banner of the “Haitian Tèt Kale Party” political party – the PHTK, led by Michel Martelly.
Martelly immediately targeted human rights groups in Haiti. The PHTK was intolerant of criticism. The PHTK did not discriminate between western backed outlets like the RNDDH or legitimate human rights and legal advocacy organizations like the BAI. Human rights advocates critical of the government began receiving death threats, harassment, and intimidation, including threats of arrest by ministerial order.
This caused a realignment of the human rights sector in Haiti, to be explored in a future article. In short, they had all become opponents of the PHTK government.
Despite being targeted by the US-backed regime and finding support among former opponents in the human rights sector, Espérance continued to use the RNDDH as a platform for persecuting political opponents.
After spending almost ten years in illegal detention in a jail cell, mostly in the National Penitentiary, Sherlson Sanon spoke to the media on February 2, 2023, describing how Espérance and the RNDDH manipulated him to frame political opponents.
When Sanon was first arrested in 2013, he was active in Moise Jean-Charles’ party Platfòm Pitit Desalin. Sanon was arrested for handing out leaflets for the party in a neighborhood where PHTK senator Joseph Lambert had won the previous election.
Pierre Espérance appeared soon after, seemingly to rescue Sanon from his illegal detention.
Sanon alleges that he was offered legal representation by Espérance. He was handed a series of documents to sign. Believing they were travel documents intended to help him flee persecution, he signed without reading them. Unbeknownst to Sanon, he was actually signing a fabricated confession written by the RNDDH.
This false confession included allegations that implicated two of his political enemies – PHTK senators Joseph Lambert and Edwin Zenny, of collaborating with a local gang. Both Lambert and Zenny were loyal to Michel Martelly.
Sanon was then put into “protective custody” – an illegal detention in the National Penitentiary – for almost ten years. According to Sanon, he was only allowed to contact the RNDDH and the American Embassy for the first three years of his imprisonment.
Sanon was never tried for any crime.
The RNDDH published Sanon’s false confession on March 12, 2013. This RNDDH report “revealed” that Sanon had been hired in 1999 by Senator Joseph Lambert to become a member of a powerful gang called “Base Kakos”. According to the RNDDH report, “this gang allegedly operated in the South-East under the leadership of former senators Joseph Lambert, Edo Zenny, the then government commissioner of Croix-des-Bouquets Leny Thelisma, and brothers Joël and Jacky Khawly, who specializing in drug trafficking, kidnapping for ransom, and assassination.”
In an interview with Radio Kiskeya, Zenny denounced the RNDDH and other adversaries of “political machinations”. Lambert, seemingly aware of the false confession, told the media “they [RNDDH] wrote the text and had him sign it.”
Accusations of corruption against Espérance and the RNDDH also come from ex-staffers.
Marie Yolène Gilles left the RNDDH in 2017. In her resignation letter, Gilles argued that her credibility would be “tarnished” if she remained in the position of program director at the RNDDH because Espérance had violated the organization’s rule against taking money from the State.
She accused Espérance of taking 1.5 million Gourdes (Haiti’s currency) from the government’s Bureau de Monétisation des Programmes d’Aide au Développement (BMPAD). When Espérance was confronted with the accusation, Espérance initially denied receiving the funds. Gilles claims Espérance also lied to other RNDDH members when he was asked about taking the funds. Then a photo of the cheque began circulating on social media, forcing Espérance to admit he took the money.
At the time of Gilles’ departure, RNDDH’s new program director Vilès Alizar told the press that the incident was an opportunity to “reaffirm our vision” as an organization and promised a “detailed report” on how the various funds had been used.
Sixteen months later in August 2018, Alizar left the RNDDH. He denounced the “bad practices” of “leaders of the organization,” saying that despite attempts to reform the RNDDH, he “realize[d] that these provisions have proved insufficient because of resistance“ from leadership, who have “refused to undertake reforms.”
The agreement between ASFC and Global Affairs Canada was officially signed on March 28 and 29, 2017 – less than one week before Gilles left the RNDDH. This funding agreement began the The “Access to Judicial Services” program and a six-year collaboration with 25 partner organizations in Haiti.
The RNDDH has continued to function as a political organization from 2017 to today. Espérance’s aversion to popular movements persists as he continues to use the RNDDH as a platform for political influence. Fanmi Lavalas supporters told the HAP delegation in 2004 that they were “dismayed that the outside world still looked upon NCHR [-Haiti] as a credible independent voice.” The evidence shows that observers should be equally dismayed that the RNDDH continues to be looked upon as a credible, independent voice for human rights.
In a written response, Global Affairs Canada confirmed they knew funding was being provided to the RNDDH through ASFC’s AJULIH project, The Canadian government continues to support Pierre Espérance’s platform for political machinations.
Part II
Documents obtained by The Canada Files reveal that a Haitian ‘human rights’ NGO had two reports, used to target political opponents, funded indirectly by the Canadian government through the NGO Avocats sans Frontières Canada (ASFC).
The National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) receives an undisclosed amount of funding under the ASFC “Access to Justice and Fight Against Impunity in Haiti” (AJULIH) project for “advocacy activities”. This author previously explained the corruption of RNDDH and its director, Pierre Espérance.
In 2004, the Canadian government funded the RNDDH (then NCHR-Haiti) as part of a broader effort to ensure the criminalization and violent repression of Lavalas leaders and supporters. The RNDDH played a key role in destabilizing Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s democratically elected government by fabricating allegations of human rights abuses about Lavalas leaders and members before and after the 2004 coup d’etats. The RNDDH also gets funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), described by its co-founder Allan Weinstein as doing “a lot of what …was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”
Subsequent allegations and reports further reinforce the view that Espérance and the RNDDH are a political organization – with the facade of a human rights group – which uses their platform and funding to target and persecute political opponents.
ASFC funds RNDDH reports that target Pierre Espérance’s political opponents
ASFC funded two RNDDH reports as part of the AJILUH project. Global Affairs Canada confirmed it knew that the RNDDH got funding from their project, when reached out to for comment.
Both reports contain a disclaimer: “This document was produced within the framework of the project ‘Access to justice and fight against impunity Haiti’ implemented by Avocats sans frontières Canada (ASFC) and its partners. The content of this document is the sole responsibility of the RNDDH and does not necessarily reflect ASFC’s points of view.”
The two reports, translated to English, are titled “Attacks on deprived neighborhoods: The RNDDH demands the end of the protection of armed gangs by the authorities in power” and “The reign of Prime Minister Ariel HENRY Or The fury of armed gangs”.
Both reports repeat allegations made by Espérance and the RNDDH that Jimmy Cherizier is a gang leader beholden to Haiti’s president Jovenel Moise and, after he was assassinated, de-facto Prime Minister turned dictator, Ariel Henry. Both are members of the Haitian Tèt Kale Party (PHTK).
The first report is 25 pages long. Cherizier’s name appears fifty-two times. The report focuses on alleged crimes by Cherizier’s G-9 coalition, and ignores alleged crimes by other gangs. Criminal gangs opposed to the G-9 alliance, including, at the time, 400 Mawazo, Ti Gabriel’s Brooklyn gang, and Izo’s 5 Second gang are omitted from the report.
Gangs who oppose the G-9 alliance are responsible for virtually all the incidents of kidnapping and rape in Port au Prince.
Espérance must have been getting nervous. The first report was published June 23, 2020. The day before, Haitian media began reporting on Cherizier successful negotiations with several gangs in Port au Prince for a ceasefire. Cherizier had united his neighborhood defense group (or vigilance brigade) with others in Port au Prince. He also claims to have successfully convinced some criminal gang leaders to cease illegal activity that harmed local residents and, instead, defend them against criminal gangs who were routinely kidnapping, raping, and extorting local citizens.
The coalition was named Fòs Revolisyonè G9 an fanmi e alye (Revolutionary Forces of the G9 Family and Allies, A.K.A. G9 or FRG9).
A month later, in July of 2020, these gangs quickly coalesced into a crime federation known as “G-pép”. These gangs are better described as armed groups who function as paramilitary forces for Haitian oligarchs, politicians, and the ruling PHTK – the party of the de facto prime minister Dr. Ariel Henry. Ti Gabriel, for example, had the support of Haitian oligarch Reginald Boulos. Boulos who, in turn, supported PM Henry’s political accord.
The first report alleges that Cherizier is “a powerful man, feared by the private business sector, armed arm of President Jovenel Moise”. Conversely, while speaking about his public demand that Moise step down, Cherizier said the G9 wanted him to “leave the country”, while also offering praise for leaders such as Aristide and Platfòm Pitit Desalin leader Moise Jean-Charles.
“The G-9 is not working for the regime, and the G-9 was not created by and is not working for the opposition,” Cherizier said. “It was created to never again have robberies, rapes, and kidnapping in our neighborhoods… but also for the ghettos to get their due, schools, clinics, hospitals, services, running water, infrastructure, and “all the security which the rich neighborhoods get.”
The second report funded by ASFC was published on May 3, 2023. In this report, the RNDDH alleges that Cherizier and the G-9 coalition had deliberately committed acts of violence to justify a foreign intervention.
The report alleges that a gun battle in Bel-Air that occurred between February 28 to March 5, 2023 was “purely and simply political”. The report goes on to claim that “the authorities in place” decided to “use their armed gangs members of the coalition led by Jimmy Cherizier” to amplify the “perception of violence in Haiti and to encourage the international community to follow up on the requested military intervention.” No evidence is presented for these assertions in the report.
Contradicting the RNDDH’s allegations, Cherizier told a press conference on August 16, 2023, that a foreign intervention force would be met with armed resistance if it did not immediately, upon entering Haiti, arrest PM Ariel Henry, corrupt oligarchs, and corrupt politicians who flood poor neighborhoods with guns. He also emphasized the disastrous consequences of the last foreign intervention in Haiti led by the United-Nations – MINUSTAH.
Espérance and the RNDDH weaponize human rights reports against opponents, again
The first RNDDH report funded by ASFC repeats allegations made against Cherizier which originate from their December 1, 2018, report titled “The events in La Saline: from power struggle between armed gangs to State-sanctioned massacre”
The first part of the title is corroborated by locals in Lasaline at the time. The attacks that occurred in Lasaline on November 13, 2018 in Lasaline involved one gang, Nan Chabon, invading the territory of another gang, Projet Lasaline, for control of a local market. This brutal gang attack resulted in at least 23 murdered civilians.
This RNDDH report also alleges that Cherizier participated in the attacks as part of a “state sanctioned massacre” of civilians in a neighborhood traditionally supportive of the Fanmi Lavalas political party.
In early November 2018, Jimmy Cherizier was a largely unknown figure in Haiti. According to Cherizier, he had formed a neighborhood defense group with other Haitian police officers (PNH). The group had been formed to expel an armed criminal gang that had taken residence in his neighborhood of Delmas 6. Cherizier had not yet announced the G-9 or attracted the attention of Haitian or international media.
In episode one of Dan Cohen and Kim Ives’ documentary, Another Vision, Cherizier alleges that Espérance offered to remove his name from the RNDDH’s upcoming report on the attacks in Lasaline if he assassinated Marie-Yolène Gilles. Cherizier refused. Gilles, a former program director for RNDDH, had left the organization, accusing its director, Pierre Espérance of corruption. She formed a competing human rights organization named the Open Eyes Foundation (FJKL) with lawyer and politician Samuel Madistin.
Cherizier was first targeted by the FJKL in a rushed report released three days after the attacks in Lasaline. An analysis of this report is available in Another Vision and in this article. It is significant that Madistin is a legal representative for Reginald Boulos. Boulos, a Haitian oligarch, openly supported Ti Gabriel, the head of the Nan Brooklyn gang and the G-pép armed group alliance. Madistin was also hired in 2004 by the RNDDH to represent the “victims” of the fabricated La Scierie massacre.
Espérance adopted the framing of the attacks in Lasaline as a “state sanctioned massacre” alleged in the rushed FJKL report, despite a lack of evidence. Similar to Espérance’s efforts to tie an alleged massacre of civilians to Aristide and Fanmi Lavalas (FL) in 2004, the RNDDH’s Lasaline report frames the civilian death toll as a result of a planned attack by the PHTK.
It was Roger Millien, an elected FL deputy minister, who first alleged that the attacks in La Saline were politically motivated. He accused local PHTK politicians of planning the attacks.
Millien’s version of events insist that the attacks were planned by the PHTK to target Fanmi Lavalas supporters. FL published a press release on November 15, 2018, less than 48 hours after the attacks. This FL press release preceded any report or investigation. The press release “strongly condemns the massacre that the Jovenel and Ceant regime conducted in Lasalin”. Explicitly blaming Jovenel Moise for orchestrating the massacre.
Millien claimed to know about an alleged planning meeting for the attacks in Lasaline attended by Cherizier, Nan Chabon’s leader, Ti Junior, and PHTK members. These allegations appear in the RNDDH report. He seems to be the sole source for this allegation.
Millien never offered an explanation on how he could know the details of a planning meeting he did not attend. Nor did he explain why he didn’t warn the residents of Lasaline of the impending attack. According to a June 21, 2019, UN report on the attacks in Lasaline, the members of the Projet Lasaline gang fled Lasaline before Nan Chabon’s attack, indicating they may have been forewarned.
Both the FJKL and RNDDH reports acknowledge that Millien had a close relationship with the local gang, Projet Lasaline. In an interview with Le Nouvelliste, he admits to knowing the leader at the time, Bout JanJan. Indeed, Millien drove an injured Bout JanJan and other gang members to the hospital after an attempted assassination in early November. He told Le Nouvelliste he drove the gang members to the hospital in accordance with “international conventions” to “provide assistance to injured people even in times of war”.
Millien’s relationship with a local gang was not an uncommon feature of FL’s elected deputy MPs following the 2017 election.
Printemps Bélizaire, another elected FL deputy MP, was summoned for questioning in connection to the 2018 murder of journalist Vladimir Legagneur. He responded by claiming that he had a diplomatic engagement in Canada, and couldn’t attend. It seems that he stayed there until the summons order expired. Bélizaire never testified.
PHTK politician Joseph Lambert, and senator at the time, accused Bélizaire of helping gang leader Arnel Joseph avoid arrest. This accusation came three days after the RNDDH report on the attacks in Lasaline explicitly blamed the PHTK government for orchestrating the events in Lasaline.
Coincidentally, Bélizaire was officially summoned to answer questions about Legagneur’s murder was on December 1, 2018, the day on which the RNDDH’s Lasaline report was published.
Bélizaire also made headlines in June 2019 in Haiti when he was recorded saying in parliament that he “burn[ed] down police stations and murder[s] people with machetes.”
Did the RNDDH politicize a clash between two armed groups?
The RNDDH’s allegations that the attacks that occurred in Lasaline on November 13, 2018 were politically motivated are contested by many residents.
Several locals believed the violence was strictly a result of gang warfare over control of the local market. Dozens of displaced Haitians who escaped Nan Chabon’s violence settled in Place D’Italy. They were interviewed by Berrick Estiodore for Kapzy News. The leadership of the camp denied the violence was political. Matyas Jean Norger, secretary of the Place D’Italy committee, said the gang violence was for “control of the market”, referring to the Croix de Bouquets market.
Jean Renaud Felix, the director of the Croix de Bouquet market at the time of the attacks, also believes the attacks in Lasaline were not politically motivated. He was interviewed in the documentary Another Vision and described the attacks as a clash between “two armed groups locking horns on the same block”.
Raphael Louigene, a social worker at Fondation St. Luc, a Catholic charity that works in the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, told the Associated Press (AP) that the attacks “appeared to result from a fight over the right to extort marketplace merchants after one gang pushed out another.”
In addition, the RNDDH report on Lasaline does acknowledge that some residents believe the attacks were part of an ongoing inter-gang war to control the local market, it nonetheless concludes that the attacks are a “result in the co-existence and cooperation between governmental authorities and armed gangs.”
The campaign to frame the attacks in Lasaline as strictly political was successful. Mainstream western media, as well as virtually every outlet on the left covering Haiti at the time, repeated the allegations that the attacks in Lasaline were politically motivated. FJKL and RNDDH reports on Lasaline were often the basis for the allegations. .
Notably, The Center for Analysis and Research on Human Rights (CARDH), one of Haiti’s most prominent human rights groups, produced a report on the attacks in Lasaline that did not suggest the attacks were politically motivated. The CARDH report didn’t mention Jimmy Cherizier either. The CARDH report mentions a relationship between a PHTK politician and Nan Chabon, but blames the state for being complacent and absent, not for organizing a massacre. Unlike the RNDDH and FJKL, CARDH has no known political affiliations that would cause accusations of bias around this event.
It speaks volumes that, in the same aforementioned AP report, Joel Noel, was identified as a “community leader” in Lasaline. IReferring to the November 13, 2018 attacks, he told AP “this is a political fight”. The fact that Noel replaced Bout JanJan as leader of the Projet Lasaline gang is omitted from the article.
Predictably, in a separate AP report six months later, Noel was interviewed. Noel’s lips were “stained purple from the wine he’d been drinking that morning”. AP reports that he “accused Cherizier in the slayings.”
On November 15, 2023, almost five years after the attacks in Lasaline, Espérance announced that the US justice system had taken control of the Lasaline dossier.
The Canadian government continues to meddle in Haiti’s affairs
Canada’s funding of the RNDDH through ASFC provides evidence that while they may have retreated from publicly meddling in Haiti’s affairs, they still seek to more quietly. The funding the Canadian government provides the RNDDH indirectly affects political discourse in Canada and the U.S. by supporting Pierre Espérance’s platform for political influence.
Espérance was involved in the creation of the Montana Accord, announced in August 2021, which initially represented a broad coalition of political parties, civil society organizations, & peasant groups. In fact, once the accord was announced it was left at the RNDDH’s office so representatives of civil society organizations could sign the document.
Support for it has shrunk significantly since the accord was announced. Two years after its initial announcement, the coalition behind the accord now only represents a small fraction of Haitian society, functioning more as a civil society front for a sector of the Haitian bourgeoisie than a coalition with broad support. The coalition was once considered the main rival to PM Henry’s political alliance. This is no longer the case.
By funding Espérance and the RNDDH, the Canadian government has indirectly provided support to the leaders of the Montana Accord coalition. The same can be said of Washington via funding from the National Endowment for Democracy and the Open Society Foundation. Over the two-year period following the announcement of the Montana Accord, this funding had the effect of maintaining a controlled opposition to PM Henry’s rule.
Espérance remains an enthusiastic supporter of the Montana Accord, even as its popularity has plummeted among Haitians. Espérance has written several articles for the liberal think-tank Just Security pleading to the American government to shift support from Ariel Henry to the Montana Accord.
When asked about Pierre Espérance’s evident political activity as director of the RNDDH, an ASFC representative claimed that: “We are a non-political organization and we work on capacity-building for human rights organizations, not individuals.”
ASFC also explained that they apply the “principle of subsidiarity” with their partners. “Our partners are independent and we offer them support without influencing their positions or endorsing them in their entirety,” they said.
It is possible ASFC is unaware of the long list of reports that conclude Espérance and the RNDDH are not a legitimate human rights group. ASFC’s adherence to the “principle of subsidiarity” seemingly allows them to ignore the evident political nature of this so-called human rights group.
It is the Canadian government that is ultimately accountable for this funding. Just as the Canadian government shares responsibility for its role in the Ottawa initiative, the 2004 coup, and funding NCHR-Haiti to pursue the case against then-Prime Minister Yvon Neptune.
The Montana Accord leadership are also tied to the 2004 coup d’etat
One of the founders and spokespersons for the Montana Accord is Magali Comeau Denis. Comeau Denis, like Espérance, had a role in the anti-Lavalas campaign before and after the 2004 coup.
Comeau Denis was one of the members of Haiti’s bourgeoisie whom the Council of the Wise selected for the coup government. She was made Minister of Culture in the Latortue/Boniface coup regime.
This means Ariel Henry, Haiti’s current dictator and, in 2004, member of the Council of the Wise, had a role selecting Comeau Denis for her position in the coup government.
Comeau Denis’ unelected position in government was a result of her participation in the propaganda campaign against Aristide’s democratically elected government. Comeau Denis co-wrote a letter in September 2003 signed by dozens of Haiti’s elite, calling Aristide’s government a “tyrannical power” experiencing “totalitarian drift”.
Similar to Espérance accusations against Neptune, Comeau Denis also made baseless accusations of murder against another FL leader, Father Gérard Jean Juste, as part of a campaign to criminalize the overwhelmingly popular party and suppress dissent after the 2004 coup.
Representing the Montana Accord, Comeau Denis recently traveled to Washington with Espérance to lobby the U.S. government to shift their support to their dwindling coalition. They met with Juan Gonzalez, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs and Under Secretary of State for Hemispheric Affairs Brian H. Nicholls on May 30, 2023. This was followed by a meeting with “authorities in the Pentagon” on June 2, 2023.
Five days later, on June 7, Washington announced new sanctions against one of their political opponents, former PHTK prime minister Laurent Lamothe.
While visiting Washington, Espérance spoke to the New York Times. Referring to the recent popular uprising in Haiti known as Bwa Kale, he said “the rise of the vigilante movement… underscores the international community’s failure to address the crisis”. In other words, Washington must shift support to the Montana Accord, who will then approve a militarily intervention to prevent a popular uprising.
A revolution in Haiti against the Canadian-backed dictator?
The Multinational Security Support Mission (MSS) is fundamentally an occupation force, an imperialist tool for maintaining hegemony and preventing a popular uprising in Haiti. The MSS is also intended to reinforce Henry’s dictatorship and have a huge influence on the composition of Haiti’s transitional government. And, in turn, Haiti’s eventual elections.
The likelihood of an MSS deployment is faltering now that Kenya’s high court has blocked deployment of Kenyan forces. William Ruto has promised, however, to deploy the police force anyways.
While the MSS hasn’t officially deployed, Kenya has already sent 200 police officers on the ground in Haiti. In addition, the U.S. Special Forces have been deployed as well to train and advise the PNH.
The Canadian government remains an enthusiastic supporter of the MSS. Canadian foreign affairs minister Mélanie Joly announced this February that Canada “will allocate $123 million in funding to support Haiti, including $80.5 million to support the deployment of the MSS”.
The same announcement included a reminder that “since 2022, Canada has committed more than $300 million in international development, humanitarian and security assistance funding to Haiti.” In addition, Canada has contributed $57 million to “reinforce” the PNH. All this underlines that Canada has played a key role in maintaining funding for Haiti’s National Police force.
Canada is the second-largest bilateral donor to Haiti after the U.S.
Global Affairs Canada has also committed the RCMP to provide “technical training” to PNH officers as part of the MSS.
Berthony Dupont explained in a recent Haiti Liberte editorial that “imperialism’s role in the current situation is obvious.” Nonetheless, he argues that conditions are favorable for a revolution. Kim Ives concurs, pointing out that “by all indications, the Haitian masses are fed up, hungry, angry, and ready to begin down the rocky road of revolution.”
In recent months, the Protected Areas Surveillance Brigade (BSAP), a small armed group tasked with protecting nature reserves, “has grown from a few dozen agents to become a large militia of over 15,000 troops, and, according to some estimates, perhaps two or three times that number”, Ives explained.
BSAP is led by Jeantel Joseph, who is also the nominal head of Guy Philippe’s party. This makes Guy Philippe the effective leader of BSAP.
Philippe recently returned from the US after serving seven years for money laundering and drug trafficking.
Upon returning, announced that he was launching a “revolution without arms”. Philippe claims his revolution is modeled after the events in Sri Lanka, where, in 2022, a popular uprising chased the government from power in four months. “Everybody saw how thousands and thousands of people entered into the residences of the leaders who were badly governing,” he explained.
While Philippe proposes a peaceful revolution, Jean Hilaire Lundi Roday, the spokesman for the National Awakening for Haiti’s Sovereignty, a political front led by Philippe’s chief lieutenant Jeantel Joseph, said that “no options are ruled out, including the taking of power by arms to overthrow Ariel Henry.”
In a speech delivered to supporters in Petit Goâve on January 28, 2024, Philippe also offered support for Cherizier, while echoing his plea to criminal gangs to “stop punishing our own people, people like you who are enduring poverty, who are victims of the system.” Philippe encouraged them to “listen to what Commander Jimmy Cherizier says: put down your weapons. Too many tears have been shed… We will change that with the people. I say to you: in 90 days we could have a beautiful Haiti which is flourishing… Stop killing people. Help them instead. Put down your weapons. Because the people are suffering too much.”
Haitians have reason to be doubtful of Philippe’s sincerity. Philippe led paramilitary forces in the 2004 coup against Aristide’s government. And yet, faced with continued imperialist-backed dictatorship and worsening security and hunger, Haitians have largely decided to support Philippe and Jeantel Joseph’s call for ousting Henry.
In a recent interview, Sherlson Sanon echoed the sentiments of many Haitians:
“I don’t say that I’m a Guy Philippe fanatic, but when your house catches fire and you have to put it out to save your home and family inside, you will accept help from anybody who brings water, and afterwards you will examine his face … I ask all the people who believe in me and know that I’m not corrupt, don’t support Guy Philippe but support the people in this battle, because Haiti has to get out of this mess… I support a movement to overturn the system, and that means not just overturning Ariel Henry and all his acolytes”.
Two political parties have come to a similar conclusion. Moise Jean-Charles, leader of the Ptit Dessalines party, has formed an alliance with Philippe and BSAP, admitting to the press that he “couldn’t fight the battle alone”. “I need to bring everyone together to have enough strength to chase Ariel Henry…”, he explained.
FL leader Maryse Narcisse told the press that she “supports the protest movements across the country to demand the resignation of Mr. Henry.” This is a tacit endorsement of the people’s movement that is supporting Jeantel Joseph and Philippe’s call to remove Henry from power, and a surprising turn of events.
At the time of the 2004 coup, Moise Jean-Charles was a popular leader inside FL, which was the target of Philippe’s rampaging paramilitary forces. Philippe has offered tepid apologies for his role in that coup. Narcisse and Moise’s decision to support the movement are, nonetheless, remarkable.
The naysayers to Philippe’s call to oust Henry are “scattered sectors of Haiti’s mostly silent political class”, Ives explains. “Philippe is clearly riding a wave of anger, hunger, fatigue, and desperation after two and a half years of interminable, fruitless negotiations in luxury hotels between politicians along with Washington’s assorted emissaries to find a path to a government to replace that of President Jovenel Moïse”, he concludes.
These new alliances speak to the desperation and determination to remove Ariel Henry from power and free Haiti from imperialism’s suffocating death grip.
The RNDDH, funded by the Canadian government, is among these naysayers against Haitian popular movements for genuine democracy. Esperance, critical of the Bwa Kale movement and any other local leader who resists the violence of criminal gangs, using Canadian government money for reports to attack political opponents to this day, remains steadfastly against the popular movement whose aim is to topple Ariel Henry. Not because Esperance supports Henry, but because a popular movement threatens the transfer of power to the Haitian elites who lead the Montana Accord coalition.
Documents
Travis Ross is a teacher based in Montreal, Québec. He is also the co-editor of the Canada-Haiti Information Project at canada-haiti.ca. Travis has written for Haiti Liberté, Black Agenda Report, The Canada Files, TruthOut, and rabble.ca. He can be reached on Twitter.
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