he not attend. There have been so many references to it perhaps it would be helpful if I explain what happened.

Mr. MORAN. Thank you. It was that answer that Mr. Burton interrupted. I did want you to conclude that. Thank you.

Mr. WAXMAN. The FBI was asked to go down on an urgent basis and went down and was on the ground in Port-au-Prince to do the crime scene investigation within the day, by 5:30 the next morning. They had a full contingent set up to conduct an investigation in a country which at the time, by all accounts, had literally no means to do crime scene investigations, had no effective police structure, et cetera, et cetera.

By late June, 1995, the FBI had brought its investigation, which was organized in quite a methodical way, to the point where they felt it necessary and desirable to question certain members of the IPSF because other information they had gotten in the investigation suggested these 12 or 13 individuals may have information leading to conclusions about who committed these assassinations. They conducted a few of those interviews of the IPSF, but some of the conditions that cropped up in connection with those investigations, those examinations, agents on the ground began to question whether or not they had the full support of the Haitian Government in what they were doing and also whether or not they were going to be allowed to continue freely to continue their investigation.

The Director of the FBI communicated those concerns to the Attorney General. The Attorney General asked me if I would go down, meet with the agents to determine what the problems were, and then meet with President Aristide in order to determine whether the FBI could conduct the kind of professional, nonpolitical law enforcement investigation that it believed it had been asked to do and the only kind of investigation that the Attorney General would support the use of her personnel in.

I met Bill Perry on that flight down there with Jim Dobbins, and on the flight down we talked about the FBI's perceptions of some of the roadblocks that appeared to have been placed in its efforts to interview these IPSF officers.

When we got to Port-au-Prince and before we met with President Aristide, Bill Perry and I went to the FBI command post to talk with the agents, get to know them-it was my first trip to meet them in Haiti-and to learn firsthand from them whether they had concerns about their personal safety, and specifically what concerns they had about the extent to which their investigation was being blocked or hampered or could be helped in any way and also to find out from them, frankly, some fairly confidential information about the ongoing law enforcement investigation, the quality of their sources, the perceived safety of their sources, the absence of a witness protection program of any sort and what we could do perhaps to get one generated.

For that discussion I felt then and I feel now—and I know Director Perry agrees because we discussed it at the time-that it would be inappropriate highly inappropriate to have a senior member of another agency of the United States that does not have law enforcement responsibilities to participate in that kind of a discussion, and I asked Ambassador Dobbins if he wouldn't mind going

to the embassy and letting us catch up with him after Bill and I had an opportunity to talk with the agents and the agents in charge down there. We did that.

Following that meeting which Ambassador Dobbins did not attend, the three of us and Ambassador Swing met with President Aristide and some of his advisors in Haiti. I was the principal spokesman at that meeting, which is the only meeting I have had with President Aristide or anybody else in the Haitian Government on this subject.

I laid out for him the concerns-the great desire of the Attorney General that the FBI be allowed to continue its investigation to the point at which it could go no further and to do so in a thorough and impartial manner consistent with the way in which the FBI does investigations in the United States, recognizing that we have no compulsory process in Haiti, no witness protection program in Haiti, no means of obtaining search warrants, et cetera, et cetera. President Aristide was very, very supportive of that.

I explained to him that in the course of trying to conduct these interviews of IPSF officers the agents were reporting that they had received communications from the Haitian Government that before the Bertin investigation could go further the FBI had to agree to investigate 20 other political assassinations that had occurred over the past few years and also that in contacting and interviewing Haitian Government employees and these IPSF officers or employees, that the FBI-since we were down there to assist the Haitian Government, the FBI should arrange these interviews through the Haitian Government and permit Haitian Government officials to sit in on the interviews.

We explained to President Aristide utterly unambiguously because we were concerned about not only the perception but the actuality of doing an impartial law enforcement investigation-that while we recognize that we were there to assist the Haitian Ministry of Justice to do an investigation, it could not do itself, we had to insist that when we wanted to contact Haitian Government officials we do so without prearrangement of the Haitian Government, without even telling the Haitian Government in advance who we were going to be interviewing and without any Haitian Government officials present.

And, also, we respectfully declined to extend the FBI investigation to include 10, 20 or 30 or 40 other murderers. We explained we were requested to do one, we wanted to try to do a good job on one, and that is what we wanted to limit ourselves to.

I think it is fair to say that there was agreement by President Aristide with the conditions that we had laid out for him on the terms under which the FBI investigation would continue; and in fact our agreement is memorialized in a letter that Ambassador Swing sent to President Aristide on July 11 the following week which, if it is not part of the record, I would offer to be part of the record if it would be of use to the committee. That I hope lays the groundwork for both the meeting from which Ambassador Dobbins was excluded and the nature of the concerns we had that prompted my visit with President Aristide and the resolution of those issues. [The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. MORAN. It certainly doesn't sound conspiratorial. It sounds understandable.

Mr. Chairman, obviously, I will not ask any other questions, but I wonder if we could get a quick response that was elicited from the other members if they have anything to add. They may not want to add anything or respond to the question.

It is with regard to the $5 million. Apparently, there is an assent the $5 million is not going to achieve any of our mutual objectives if it is not used; and if it was used in fact it would not be particularly to the benefit of President Aristide but to the benefit of American policy to professionalize the police force. I assume that is consistent.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Chairman, I don't want to interrupt my colleague from Virginia, but I have more questions that I have to ask, and I would like to have his questioning be terminated relatively

soon.

Mr. MORAN. How about now?

Mr. WAXMAN. I would just like to say, since I have the microphone, from the ICITAP perspective, the Department of Justice ICITAP must, when it goes into a foreign country training, be permitted to do so in a complete and impartial manner. We are actually quite proud of the police training that has gone on at the Haitian Police Academy to date. We would be very, very disappointed, to say the least, if we were not able to continue, at a minimum, the final 2 months of training which will get the Haitian National Police force up to the 5,000 level. I mean, I don't see what interest would be served

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Waxman, is the FBI prepared to return to complete their investigation if the obstacles are withdrawn?

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, I will be sure to reserve to Bill Perry the FBI answer, but if I can just explain, Mr. Chairman

Chairman GILMAN. I am asking you, is the Attorney General prepared to recommend the FBI further conduct its investigation if the obstacles that you referred to are taken care of?

Mr. WAXMAN. The Attorney General has recommended and has decided that, given the nature of the obstacles as they exist nowand I hope you permit me to explain what they are, at least as we perceive them the best course for the continuation of the Bertin investigation, and particularly FBI involvement, is for the FBI to provide support to a continued investigation of the Bertin investigation that is being conducted by the special investigations unit under the supervision of the U.N. ČIVPOL.

What caused the FBI to conclude that we can't really go productively any further is that after our meeting with President Aristide at which there was an agreement that the FBI could contact anybody in the government it wanted without pre-notice and without any involvement of the Haitian Government, a set of lawyers emerged purporting to represent the 13 individuals that the FBI wanted to interview. The lawyers indicated that they would be pleased to have their clients interviewed by the FBI but only if there was a transcript of the interviews, if the lawyer, the same lawyer, was present for all of these interviews, the questions were submitted in advance, a number of conditions which-and I will let

Mr. Perry speak to it-the FBI felt were not consistent with the kind of professional investigation it wanted to conduct.

The lawyers all represented that they were private lawyers being paid to represent those private individuals and that they had no connection with and were not taking direction from the Haitian Government.

Mr. BURTON. Would the Chairman yield? Would the gentleman yield on that?

Chairman GILMAN. Be pleased to.

Mr. BURTON. It is my understanding that those legal fees were being paid by the Haitian Government. If that is the case, why would you say they were independent of the Haitian Government? Mr. GEJDENSON. Does the gentleman have evidence to that nature?

Chairman GILMAN. Regular order.

The gentleman has yielded to Mr. Burton for a question, and let's go on.

Mr. BURTON. Mr. Dobbins, did you ever see cable transmissions to the effect that those legal fees were paid for by the Haitian Government?

Mr. DOBBINS. I think they were.

Mr. BURTON. I rest my case. For you to say they were independent of the Haitian Government, these 13 people are being defended by the Haitian Government itself in these assassinations.

Mr. WAXMAN. I don't want to get into a quibble with the Congressman. We drew a distinction when we met with President Aristide because it is a distinction that we honor in this country. In our criminal justice system, for example, the government pays for the defense of most defendants in this country, but they owe their fiduciary responsibility to

Mr. BURTON. Well, if I might interrupt briefly.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Burton, you have an opportunity for a second round.

Mr. BURTON. But this is relevant at this particular time, because he just made the point that these cases that were being tried were independent of the government. But the government was paying the legal fees to defend these people who were accused of murder, political assassinations.

Now my question is, why would the government be paying the legal fees of these people if they were not somewhat involved?

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, can I finish answering your question?

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Moran's time has expired.

And, Mr. Waxman, we are going to ask you if you will put on the record for us, submit to the record, the names of the attorneys who were involved at the time that you were having your discussions with Mr. Aristide.

Mr. WAXMAN. We would surely do that.

Chairman GILMAN. And Mr. Bereuter is recognized.

[The information referred to appears in the appendix.]

Mr. WAXMAN. Can I just say, Mr. Chairman, I had not yet finished the answer to the question you asked me, but I would be pleased to at an appropriate time.

Chairman GILMAN. Mr. Bereuter.

Mr. BEREUTER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have a line of questioning, Mr. Dobbins, related to the death of Madam Durocher Bertin. If you could answer as concisely as you can, consistent with accuracy, I would appreciate it.

The media reported and the State Department has confirmed that before Madam Bertin was killed, the U.S. military uncovered a plot to kill her. As a matter of fact, the committee now has obtained a letter dated March 22, 6 days before the killing, in which Major General George Fisher informed Haiti's defense-Haiti's justice minister about a credible plot to kill Madam Bertin.

My first question: Did the Embassy consider the Interior Minister Beaubrun to be seriously implicated in the plot?

Mr. DOBBINS. They thought that the allegation was a very serious one that needed to be looked into. So I think the answer is potentially yes.

Mr. BEREUTER. And it was specifically concern about the Interior Minister?

Mr. DOBBINS. At that stage, as I recall, the only government official that was alleged to be implicated was the Minister of the Interior.

Mr. BEREUTER. Did President Aristide look into the Interior Minister's Mr. Beaubrun's-role in the foiled plot?

Mr. DOBBINS. He told us that he had looked into it and that he believed that the charge was unsubstantiated.

Mr. BEREUTER. And in fact that is true, that on March 23, the day after the Major General Fisher sent the letter, according to a chronology of events, President Aristide tells Major General Fisher and Ambassador William Swing that he has looked into Beaubrun's involvement in the Bertin plot and concluded that the Interior Ministry was not involved. The Justice Minister, who was supposed to be investigating, apparently didn't know that the Moise brothers were being held in a police station at the time, and so that day Ambassador Swing cabled the State Department suggesting calls to Aristide from senior Washington officials to press for an inquiry. Are you aware, Ambassador Dobbins, that Madam Bertin's husband has said that his murdered wife was never warned explicitly of the murder plot against her?

Mr. DOBBINS. Yes.

Mr. BEREUTER. A fact that was recently confirmed before members of this committee staff by a U.N. official who met with Madam Bertin several days before she was killed.

Did the Embassy or the Multinational Force, Ambassador Dobbins, confirm with Mrs. Bertin directly that the Haitian officials had warned her of a plot to kill her?

Mr. DOBBINS. I believe that the force commander, in consultation with the Ambassador, decided that it was the Government of Haiti's responsibility to convey the warning, that they asked them to do so, were told that they would do so.

I believe they were also told that they had done so, and there's clearly a conflict there.

Mrs. Bertin's husband and I believe another relative-there were subsequent conversations between Bertin and the Minister of Justice. No one else was present at them. I think there were two. The Minister of Justice maintained he conveyed the warning. Mrs.