United States Department of State 20520 Washington, D.C. Dear Mr. Chairman: Shortly you will receive our response to your letters of December 15 and December 22, regarding the training of the Haitian National Police. We have also made arrangements to give your Committee's staff and members access to the first batch of documents requested by Chairman Combest (and Roger Noriega actually reviewed those documents on December 29). Those additional documents requested subsequently by you, Chairman Combest, and Chairman Helms should be available shortly. We are, needless to say, concerned that you should think that the Department of State may have held back from the Congress information regarding the FBI's investigation of the murder of Mireille Bertin. We can assure you that such is not the case. Through early October, the FBI treated this inquiry as an ongoing criminal investigation. Accordingly, it shared only such information as it deemed necessary and advisable with Embassy, CIA, and DOD personnel in Port-au-Prince. Based on contacts with the FBI and other sources, our Embassy reported on the Bertin investigation. In Washington, the relevant agencies cooperated in seeking to overcome obstacles which the FBI had encountered in the course of its investigation. In late October, after a decision had been made to discontinue the independent FBI investigation and to turn the material it had gathered over to the Haitian investigative team created for the purpose of pursuing this inquiry, FBI representatives in Washington met with State and other relevant agency representatives to share results of their investigation. Congress was informed in early November, when all involved agencies provided the House Permanent Select The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives. Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI) with written testimony and a comprehensive set of answers prepared for a closed HPSCI hearing scheduled for November 1, but subsequently postponed. The re-emergence of political violence in Haiti, and the possible implication of senior officials in the Haitian security apparatus has been and remains at the top of our bilateral agenda with Haiti. The President, Vice President, Secretaries of State and Defense, the National Security Advisor, and other senior American officials have dealt directly and forcefully with this issue in their conversations with President Aristide and we will do so with his successor. We are confident that, as the Committee reviews the telegrams and other material requested and being made available, you will recognize the priority this issue has received. Security, democracy and respect for human rights is on the rise in Haiti, but that society remains a deeply troubled one. Further progress in all these fields will require time, attention, assistance, firmness and candor on our part. We are most anxious to work with you and your colleagues to sustain these qualities in our relationship with Haiti. Sincerely, Wendy R. Sreeman Wendy R. Sherman Legislative Affairs The Secretary has asked that we reply to your and Chairman Helms' letter of December 15 concerning recent developments in Haiti. We are also taking this opportunity to reply to your letter of December 22, which addressed similar security and police training issues. UNMIH Withdrawal Like you, the Administration fully expects the UN peacekeeping mission (UNMIH) mandate in Haiti to expire as scheduled on February 29, 1996. The U.S. Government is engaged in discussions involving the United Nations, the Government of Haiti, and the other "Friends of the Secretary General" concerning the transition to and the nature of the post-UNMIH arrangements in Haiti. As we have previously discussed with Committee staff, U.S. development projects are expected to continue. The Government of Haiti is considering a request for the continued presence of a small, highly qualified contingent of UN Civilian Police (UN CIVPOL) to continue field training for the new Haitian National Police (HNP), and perhaps also for a small international military contingent to provide a rapid reaction capability in the capital while the HNP develops that capability. Bilateral deployments for training by U.S. military engineers may also continue in Haiti, as in other countries in the region. No peacekeeping role for U.S. forces following the expiration of the UNMIH mandate is envisioned. The Department of Defense is prepared to brief you on plans for the withdrawal of U.S. forces. It is clear at this juncture that UNMIH's existing peacekeeping mandate will end on February 29. In keeping with normal UN practice, the UNMIH forces' responsibilities after that date will be confined to executing a prompt, orderly and safe withdrawal of their equipment and personnel. Within this framework, we understand that DoD's current planning calls for the majority of the American component of UNMIH to have departed Haiti before the end of March. The Honorable Benjamin A. Gilman, Chairman, Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives. -2 Police Training As pointed out in the more detailed answers to your questions of December 15 (enclosed), and during our briefing to Committee staff December 21, the U.S. has begun discussions with the Haitian government regarding its decision to assimilate 1,511 individuals remaining from the former Interim Public Security Force (IPSF) into the HNP. This group includes 829 Guantanamo-trained "public safety" personnel and 682 former members of the Haitian Armed Forces (FAd′H). We have urged that these individuals be vetted, as were former FAd'H a year ago when brought into the IPSF, to ensure that no one with links to corruption, drug trafficking or human rights violations is integrated into the HNP. In this connection, the U.S. Government is developing, in consultation with UN CIVPOL and with UN/OAS International Civilian Mission human rights monitors, our own information base on all of these individuals. We will bring to the attention of the Haitian Government credible negative information on any former IPSF members, and will strongly urge that any who do not meet the above criteria not be retained in any police or security role whatsoever. The Haitian Government has expressed a desire for further training for the former IPSF members being assimilated into the HNP. We are willing, in principle, to provide appropriate training, but only to former IPSF members who have successfully cleared the vetting process. We can assure you that no individuals who fail to meet those criteria will receive any U.S.-provided training. Special Investigative Unit The Haitian Government has, as you know, established a Special Investigative Unit (SIU), to investigate high profile crimes including the murders of Mireille Bertin and Jean Hubert Feuille. The SIU is hampered, however, by a lack of professional investigatory expertise. Accordingly, the Government of Haiti has asked UN CIVPOL and the U.S. Government to provide trained investigators to assist the operations of this investigative unit. The UN has already assigned a team of Canadian and French police officers to that task. The U.S. Government, for its part, has recruited two experienced American investigators to work with CIVPOL as advisors for this unit. The U.S. Government will continue to urge the Government of Haiti to have this unit move aggressively on these cases in the weeks ahead. Representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have recently met with the prosecutor responsible for handling the Bertin case, in order to convey results of the FBI's investigation, and to establish arrangements for the provision of forensic assistance. Senior U.S. executive branch officials have repeatedly urged the Government of Haiti to -3 undertake a serious, thorough and professional investigation of this and other possibly politically motivated crimes, or in addition risk losing U.S. assistance. We will continue to follow the SIU's efforts closely. Document Requests With respect to the documents requested in your and Chairman Helms' letter of December 15, the information you seek as well as many of the underlying telegrams have already been made available, under certain conditions, to members and staff of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HPSCI). Our reply of December 26 to HPSCI Chairman Combest's letter of September 28 explained the access procedures. We will make these documents available for review by staff of the International and Foreign Relations Committees under similar conditions. We will contact you regarding the remaining documents requested by you, Chairman Helms and Chairman Combest as soon as the Department's established document review procedures have been completed for those documents. - - We share your commitment to ensuring that the mission of our armed forces in Haiti and of the larger UN force they support to provide a secure and stable environment for a peaceful, democratic political transition be completed successfully and on schedule. The continued training and deployment of a professional, apolitical, civilian Haitian police force is essential to this goal. Nearly 5,000 newly recruited and trained Haitian National Police are due to be deployed by February, when the new Haitian president takes office, provided funding is forthcoming and the Department of Justice training and assistance to this new Haitian police force continues without interruption. With this Haitian public security capability in place, we are confident U.S. forces will be able to complete their mission in Haiti in February, and then return home. Your concurrence in providing the $5 million allocated to support this Department of Justice training through the presidential transition and UNMIH withdrawal will greatly facilitate these efforts. We hope this information has been useful to you. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can be of further assistance. Sincerely, Wendy R. Sherman Wendy R. Sherman Enclosure: as stated |