The mystery of mercenaries in Haiti

One by one the police officers pulled six assault rifles from the Toyota Prado and Ford pickup, followed by six handguns, two drones, three satellite phones, five ballistic vests and a selection of licence plates.

Looking on were five Americans – including two former Navy SEALs, a former military contractor trained by the notorious mercenary organisation Blackwater – and two Serbian mercenaries who lived in the US.

They had been stopped by the officers on February 17 at a routine roadblock outside the central bank in Port-au-Prince, capital city of Haiti, after driving without licence plates.

Despite assuring the officers that they were on a “government mission” and their boss would call their boss, it wasn’t long before the team of former elite soldiers were sitting in jail cells and Haitians were asking what business foreign mercenaries had at the central bank.

Publicly Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Henry Ceant denied the men were working for the government and labelled them “terrorists” there to overthrow the government. Behind closed doors however, negotiations were underway with the US government and three days after their arrest the men were on a flight back to the America, like departing tourists. They did not face any criminal charges.

Their swift release, the government’s failure to bring any charges against them and their claims to be on a “government mission” left the terrorist narrative in tatters and more than a month on, Haitian President Jovenel Moïse is still trying to manage the fallout.

The embattled president has been struggling to bring to peace to the small Caribbean nation since protests began in July last year over a court report that implicated Moïse’s predecessor in a scandal relating to the misuse of PetroCaribe funds.

This money had been provided to Haiti by Venezuela between 2008 and 2016 through an oil agreement which allowed the Haitian government, as well as several other Caribbean nations, to buy oil from Venezuela on preferential terms. The savings made through the agreement were then earmarked for social and development projects, including sanitation, health and infrastructure.

But when questions were raised over why the people of Haiti had failed to see the benefits, the country’s senate launched an investigation and reported in November 2017 that close to $2 billion from the PetroCaribe Fund was either missing or misspent. Other reports have estimated the amount could be closer to $3.8 billion.

Much of this corruption is believed to be a result of actions taken by Moïse’s predecessor, Joseph Michel Martelly, a man with ties to the country’s former US-backed dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and to the Clinton family.

In elections held in November 2010, none of the candidates won a majority and as a result the two found to have won the most votes were to move on to a second round – this did not include Martelly, until then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton intervened.

Clinton used the Organization of American States (OAS) to remove one of the successful candidates and replace them with Martelly. The US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice even threatened to cut-off US aid to Haiti if this did not happen.

The US demands were heard and Martelly won the March 2011 election with a voting turnout of just 23 percent – a record low for the whole of Latin America, topped only by Haiti’s 2016 elections.

After taking office Martelly dissolved parliament and began passing laws through executive orders. He was described by the New York Times as being “surrounded by a network of friends and aides who have been arrested on charges including rape, murder, drug trafficking and kidnapping”.

The years he was in office saw billions in public funds lost, including money from the PetroCaribe agreement.

By the time Moïse took power in 2017, following another questionable election, the people of Haiti were angry and frustrated. It wasn’t long before widespread protests over the corruption broke out, with many demanding to know what had happened to the PetroCaribe money.

The situation has been made worse by the government response, which has seen violent crackdowns on protesters and allegations of human rights abuses. In November, heavily armed police are believed to have taken part in a massacre in Grand Ravine area of Port-au-Prince. The UN is investigating the incident and it is believed that at least 21 men were killed.

Moïse’s announcement that he supported America’s attempts at regime change in Venezuela led to more calls for him to step down.

According to a recent investigation by the newspaper Haiti Liberté and The Intercept, it is a combination of all of these issues that reveals the true motive of the American mercenary team.

Their investigation found that the PetroCaribe fund is controlled by Moïse, Céant, and the central bank’s president, Jean Baden Dubois. Disputes between Moïse and Céant has meant that $80 million in that fund is effectively frozen.

To resolve the deadlock, they claim one of Moïse’s close friends named Josué Leconte employed the mercenaries to escort a presidential aide to the Haitian central bank where he would transfer the money from the oil account to another account controlled by the president. It would give him complete control over the funds.

In return, the president would award a lucrative telecoms contract to an engineering firm owned by Leconte.

A day after the investigation was published, Christopher Osman, an ex-Navy SEAL and member of the team, denied the Intercept story and told the Miami Herald that the team were “not mercenaries” and “not murderers”. He claimed they were simply doing security work.

“All of these stories that we were there to rob the bank is 100 percent lies,” he said.

“From the time we landed, to today – we were always told that we were there working on behalf of the Haitian government and people that were close to the president.”

Osman claimed the team were there to escort Leconte to the bank while he signed a multi-million-pound deal. However, after the arrest Leconte fled the country.

He added that they are now being used as “pawns” in a political battle between Moïse and Céant, who recently resigned from his post a prime minister.

The bank’s president has claimed both stories are untrue, noting that the Intercept investigation would be impossible due to the transfer of funds requiring signatures from the Haitian State and the Venezuelan ambassador.

As theories and allegations continue, Haitians are risking their lives daily by taking to the streets and demanding answers. They want legitimate democracy in their country and to see the benefits of the money that was supposed to bring improvements.

Meanwhile, Moïse has been spending his time with US President Donald Trump in Mar-a-Lago, Florida where they discussed business investments and improving tourism. The US State Department has not commented on the mercenaries.

Photo: Clement Larrive