Consorting with Tyrants U.S. policymakers speak of the inauguration of a new ,era in U.S. Latin America policy in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. The calculus, they say, has changed: collaboration with brutal military rulers in order to keep left- ist forces at bay is a thing of the past. The government's primary concern is now expanding and strengthening the region's "market democracies." On its face, U.S. policy towards Haiti and Guatemala reflects the government's decision not to con- sort with tyrants anymore. In an apparent reversal of Cold War roles, a U.S. invasion restored leftist President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power after efforts to dislodge the military through a negotiated settle- ment had failed. In Guatemala, the United States apparently keeps its distance from the military and has encouraged peace negotiations to resolve the country's prolonged civil war. At least, those are the policies offered for public consumption. Due to the persistence and determi- nation of human-rights activists like Jennifer Harbury and investigative journalists like Allan Nairn, howev- er, a different story has begun to emerge. In this version, the U.S. government-and in particular its intelligence services-has been actively collaborating and propping up savage military forces and their paramilitary allies in Haiti and Guatemala. The U.S. government, of course, vehemently denies this. In any government operation, there is always a paper trail. Haiti and Guatemala are no exceptions to the rule. Documents in U.S. gov- ernment hands have the power to expose the true nature and scope of U.S. involvement once and for all. They would also provide evidence that could be used to prosecute human rights abusers-putting an end to a shameful legacy of impunity. merican soldiers in Haiti confiscated over 160,000 Documents left behind by the paramilitary group FRAPH and the Haitian army when they fled in haste at the time of the invasion. When the existence of these docu- ments came to light 14 months later, the Aristide administration requested their return. The U.S. government, however, had the arro- gance to claim "finders keepers." In the face of the Haitian govern- ment's unwillingness to drop the issue, Washington is now trying to strike a bargain. It offered to hand over the documents on the condi- tion that the names of U.S. citizens (including Haitian Americans with dual citizenship) be blacked out, and that access to the documents be restricted. The Haitian government is sticking to its guns: it wants the documents back with no strings attached. We can only speculate about the contents of the documents. Many believe the documents would reveal an intricate web of complicity between the U.S. government and the coup regime. Others speculate that they might even provide evi- dence of an arms pipeline from the Haitian-American community in Miami to the Haitian military-- with the knowledge or complicity of the CIA. U.S. activities in Guatemala have also been cloaked under a veil of secrecy. Jennifer Harbury's cam- paign to find out what happened to her husband, guerrilla commander Efrafn BAmaca VelAsquez, succeed- ed in piercing that veil. She obtained declassified documents that prove that the CIA was aware of BAmaca's capture, and even paid for information obtained from his interrogation under torture. In early 1995, Rep. Robert Torricelli went public with classified information that revealed that Col. Julio Roberto Alpirez, a Guatemalan military offi- cer on the CIA payroll, directed the torture and murder of BAmaca and the innkeeper Michael DeVine. With the scandal hitting the front pages of the nation's newspapers last year, President Clinton felt compelled to call for a comprehen- sive review by the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB) of all gov- ernment documents which might shed light on possible U.S. involve- ment in the two murders or any related matters. Only full disclosure of the documents will reveal to what extent U.S. tax dollars have funded murder in Guatemala. If the information released so far is any yardstick, however, the U.S. public should not expect a full air- ing of the truth from the IOB final report. In July, 1995, a four-page summary was the only document made public from a CIA Inspector General's 700-page report on the issue. In May of this year, the State Department released 5,000 docu- ments, but admitted holding back files which might compromise "intelligence sources and methods." The irony is that it was precisely the CIA's use of torturers and mur- derers as "sources" that sparked the public outcry in the first place. The public deserves to know the truth about U.S. involvement in Haiti and Guatemala. Yet the U.S. government is unwilling to let the relevant documents be scrutinized. We are left to wonder: what is in the documents that the United States is so afraid of revealing?
