Further, ICITAP training at the new National Police Academy has provided students with basic skills for community policing. This has been accomplished in spite of an accelerated program midstream to meet the GOH's revised officer deployment schedule.

We did this, Mr. Chairman, by dividing the curriculum into two sessions, and opening an auxiliary "academy" at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. For 6 months we offered 8 weeks of conceptual training-human rights, Haitian law-at the Academy in Port-auPrince, and 8 weeks of practical programs-firearms, arrest procedures, driving-at Fort Leonard Wood.

Throughout, international field-mentoring efforts have continued, mostly through CIVPOL, but this support is not enough, given the relative inexperience of the HNP recruits. We believe the GOH may ask for a continued CIVPOL presence following the expiration of the U.N. mandate in February, but such a request has not yet been made.

Equipping the HNP is a continuing problem. Conditions at many station houses are poor, office infrastructure minimal, and the force still lacks many of the most basic items used by modern police. It is especially important that the GOH dedicate more of its own resources to standing up the police. In addition, the force will also need more specialized training, which ICITAP would propose to begin soon.

Future police professionalism:

Like this committee, Mr. Chairman, this administration is extremely concerned about the continuing apolitical and professional profile of the HNP. While we recognize the need for greater numbers of police than will have been deployed by the departure of the U.N. forces, we have strongly argued against the Haitian Government's decision to merge significant numbers of the IPSF into the HNP.

We have not taken the position that IPSF members ought to be excluded from the HNP but rather have argued that the decision to include IPSF members should be made on a case-by-case basis. Their eligibility for consideration should be based first on their professional performance-with special emphasis on human rights grounds-while in the IPSF.

Assuming they are able to meet the same recruitment standards as other HNP academy graduates, we would support their inclusion and would be willing to provide U.S.-funded academy training, if funding for such training were available.

As an alternative, we would support the creation of specialized corps for traffic control, for stationary security at public facilities that would induct IPSF members at something other than the "sworn officer" status of the HNP Academy graduates. There is a demonstrated need for such personnel throughout Haiti.

We have expressed our concern in particular about the induction of more than 100 ex-FAd'H officers into headquarters and fieldleadership positions in the HNP. We have continued to recommend merit-based selection and have made our concerns clear to the GOH.

We understand that the U.N. Civilian Police had some role in selecting these officers for retention, and we understand that the United Nations has recommended their incorporation into the

HNP. While we understand that the United Nations based its recommendations on feedback from its corps of 600 police monitors serving in the field, we nevertheless differed in our assessment and in our advice to the GOH.

As Ambassador Dobbins mentioned, we hold our deepest concern over the inclusion of individuals in the HNP's ranks who may have committed criminal acts. We will not support a force which harbors criminals in its ranks. On this, our position with the GOH has been unswerving. We want to ensure a thoroughly apolitical, professional national police force that respects human rights and fundamental freedoms, and our future support is contingent upon progress toward this basic goal.

Mr. Chairman, we are at a delicate juncture in terms of our training of the HNP. Without the release of further funds through AID to ICITAP, the ICITAP police training program in Haiti will run out of funds on January 15. At that time, the expatriate training staff of the Haitian National Police Academy-some 150 police officers, largely from the United States but including some 20 Canadian RCMP and 5 French national police instructors as wellwould be dismissed and sent home. In effect, the Academy would close.

That will have important consequences on our ability to stand up a fully functional HNP capable of taking over all public security functions from the UNMIH forces and allow their orderly departure. It would mean that the last two classes of HNP cadets-1,500 members of basic training classes 8 and 9-could not graduate and would be unprepared for the field.

Further, certain specialized training programs could not be carried out, and ICITAP technical assistance to the HNP would be terminated. Departure of the ICITAP advisors now would seriously hamper our efforts to institutionalize procedures and operations of the new police force.

Mr. Chairman, the Administration continues to believe, and will seek to confirm, that the GOH broadly shares the goals I have outlined above. With the GOH, we hope to complete the basic task of fielding a well-trained, motivated corps of professional Haitian police, a force capable of carrying out its public security mandate while respecting human rights. We want to finish what we started to give Haiti; its best possible chance for lasting democracy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you Mr. Gelbard.

Chairman GILMAN. Ambassador Dobbins, Special Coordinator for Haiti, Department of State.

TESTIMONY OF JAMES DOBBINS

Mr. DOBBINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Chairman GILMAN. You may submit the full statement or summarize it.

Mr. DOBBINS. With your permission I will excerpt from a fuller statement which will be submitted for the record.

Chairman GILMAN. The full statement will be received, without objection.

Mr. DOBBINS. Haiti has a long, unhappy tradition of political violence. Helping Haiti's Democratic leaders break with that tradition has been a major objective of American policy.

With the dismantlement of the Haitian Army, once known for its violence and repressive tactics, the abolition of the rural section chief system which occurred in late 1994 and the formation and training of a civilian national police force, there has been a dramatic drop from violence and an improvement in the human rights situation. All types of violent crime are down, and political violence has fallen off even more sharply.

Following 3 years of brutal repression, during which rape, torture, and murder were the routine instruments of governance, many had expected that the restoration of Haiti's legitimate government would be followed by a wave of retribution. Thanks to the professionalism of American and international forces and President Aristide's emphasis on reconciliation, this has not occurred.

But recognizing how the situation has improved is not to suggest that further steps are not needed to eradicate political violence from Haitian life. As I have noted to this committee on October 12th in my submitted testimony, there have been some two dozen murders committed in Haiti since October 1994, which fall in the category of possible political or revenge killings, the most prominent of which was the murder of Mireille Bertin on March 28, 1995.

Recognizing the importance of eradicating political violence from Haitian life, the U.S. Government has over the past year maintained an intense dialog with President Aristide regarding the Bertin investigation, other potential political murders, possible connection among these killings, possible involvement of individuals in official positions with such activities.

President Clinton, Vice President Gore, Secretary of Defense Perry, Assistant to the President for National Security Lake, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Talbott, Ambassador Álbright, Ambassador Swing, and other representatives of State, Justice, and Defense have all, on various occasions, reviewed these issues with President Aristide.

In these discussions, we have urged that acts of political violence be investigated and prosecuted aggressively. We have urged that anyone implicated in such activities be relieved of all official responsibilities. We have urged that a new professional police and justice establishment be created, untainted by any association with past acts of political violence.

President Aristide accepted our offer to have the FBI investigate the Bertin murder. He subsequently sought to broaden the scope of the FBI's efforts to cover other high-profile, possibly political cases dating from the coup period. He accepted our counterproposal that he form a new Haitian investigative unit to investigate all such crimes, including the Bertin case. He agreed that this investigative unit should be made up of ICITAP-trained graduates from the police academy and that it should be supported by professional investigators from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the French Gendarmerie, and the United States, with forensic and other technical support from the FBI.

Our dialog with the Government of Haiti on these matters is by no means concluded. We will continue to press for aggressive investigation of the Bertin and other possibly political, possibly connected murders.

We will continue to urge that the Haitian Government separate individuals who may be implicated in these acts from any connection with the police or judicial establishment even before that investigation is complete.

We will continue to urge that appointments to senior positions in the Haitian National Police be based on merit and competence, not patronage and political loyalty.

We will continue, in other words, to urge that the Government of Haiti sustain, preserve, and extend the reforms in Haiti's police and justice system which it has set in train.

Assistant Secretary Gelbard has addressed the issues related to our training of the Haitian National Police. As he has noted, we have made clear that we will not support a force which harbors criminals within its ranks. This includes, obviously and especially, anyone implicated in political violence. We have over the past 15 months made major strides in ridding Haiti's security establishment of such individuals. We will remain vigilant and optimistic that our efforts can have a continued effect.

We have worked closely with the Congress in helping Haiti to create a new police force, establish the rule of law, and deal with the problems of political violence. Department representatives have met with members or staff over 30 times since January 1995 and 11 times since October.

I raised the Bertin case in my October 12 testimony to this committee. On November 2, State and all other agencies concerned provided detailed and extensive information on this same subject to the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Chairman, I understand and am deeply distressed that you are concerned that the State Department may not have furnished this committee on October 12 with the same information that it gave to the Intelligence Committee 2 weeks later.

On October 12, I informed this committee that the Government of Haiti had just set up a special investigative unit to pursue the Bertin and other possibly politically motivated killings. Prior to that event, the FBI had treated this inquiry as an ongoing criminal investigation and shared only such information as it deemed necessary and advisable with the Embassy, DOD, and other agency personnel in Port-au-Prince.

It was following the creation of the special Haitian investigative unit and thus later in October that FBI representatives in Washington met with State and other relevant agency representatives to share the results of their investigation as we prepared to turn this material over to the new Haitian investigative unit and to respond to inquiries from the House Select Committee on Intelligence.

Mr. Chairman, in 8 weeks the peacekeeping operation of the United Nations in Haiti will be completed. Our troops will return home. Their orderly, safe, and timely departure is, I know, a priority that all of us share. We have learned through experience that the most difficult part of any peacekeeping operation is often its conclusion, not its initiation.

Essential to the successful and timely conclusion of this particular operation is the deployment on schedule of Haiti's new police force in order that something is in place to take the place of departing American and other international military forces and assume responsibility for security in Haiti when the mandate of the U.N. peacekeeping force terminates in 8 weeks.

Over 1,500 police cadets remain in training today. We seek your cooperation in assuring the funding necessary to allow these cadets to complete their training over the next 8 weeks.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Dobbins appears in the appendix.]

Chairman GILMAN. Thank you, Mr. Dobbins.

Mr. Bill Perry, Deputy Assistant Director, Criminal Investigative Division of the FBI, you may submit your full statement or summarize, whichever you see fit.

TESTIMONY OF BILL PERRY

Mr. PERRY. I will read a summary of my complete statement. Chairman GILMAN. Your complete statement will be made part of the record, without objection.

Mr. PERRY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is William E. Perry, and I am a deputy assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, during the early morning hours of March 29, 1995, to initiate an investigation into the murders of Mireille Durocher Bertin and Eugene Baillergeau, Jr. As the committee knows, Madam Bertin was a prominent, politically active Haitian attorney and an outspoken critic of President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

At approximately 3:30 p.m. in the afternoon of March 28, 1995, both Bertin and Baillergeau were slain by 9mm and 5.56mm gunfire from at least two assailants as their car sat in heavy traffic on Martin Luther King Boulevard in Port-au-Prince.

The FBI's investigative strategy was designed to ensure that a thorough and comprehensive investigation was conducted, in spite of the FBI's lack of compulsory process, witness protection, et cetera, in a foreign country. The investigative plan sought to examine a variety of possible motives for the murders.

Upon arrival in Haiti, liaison was immediately established with Haitian Government officials and with the U.S. Embassy. Since we were conducting a law enforcement investigation in a foreign culture, with a foreign language, and with no contacts of our own, we met regularly in Port-au-Prince with representatives of the Embassy, the U.S. military, and other relevant U.S. agencies in order to obtain assistance and advice and generally to apprise them of the course of our investigation. Discussion included investigative strategies, problems experienced, and certain investigative information developed on the murders.

We did not provide this information as an intelligence gathering or intelligence dissemination effort. We were not in Haiti to do either, and we did not. Rather, we provided information to these agencies in Port-au-Prince in order to obtain their cooperation and