New Documents Reportedly Link CIA Veteran to 2004 Haiti Coup

In 2002 a brazen jailbreak involving a bulldozer freed 155 prisoners, including notorious gang leader Amiot “Cubain” Metayer, in Gonaive, Haiti. The event weakened the national government and led to a violent military coup two years later, ousting the democratically elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

An investigation by independent outlet The Gray Zone has revealed previously classified documents that were released as part of a Freedom of Information Act request, unintentionally, the outlet suspects.

The documents appear to show that a CIA veteran met with coup plotters and disloyal police officers the day before the Gonaive jailbreak. Janice L. Elmore was officially working as a State Department “political officer” at the Embassy in Port-au-Prince.

According to the documents, the Dominican ambassador said that Aristide, then president, saw an embassy vehicle in Gonaive, where embassy officials were told not to travel. Aristide reportedly told the Dominican ambassador that Elmore was meeting with police officers close to Dany Toussaint, who was later involved in the coup. The Dominican ambassador reportedly also said that Elmore had contacts with other “questionable individuals” including Hugues Paris, who was described as “a Haitian with ties to coup plotters here,” by the document. He has also been linked to funding the FLRN death squad, according to The Gray Zone.

The Dominican ambassador noted that “someone from the embassy” called Toussaint and warned him that Aristide planned to have him arrested. The document’s author, then-US Ambassador Brian Dean Curran, notes that “The department has designated me as the only person who should talk to Toussaint – and only with specific instructions from Washington,” seeming to imply that Elmore may have been the one who contacted Toussaint. “Janice [Elmore] has mentioned incidental contact with Toussaint at soccer matches, but nothing further,” it notes.

The cable also seems less concerned about whether Elmore was an agent, and more if her cover had been blown. It mentions concerns that the Haitian government could intercept cell phone calls and notes that a source indicated that it could. It notes that the government may be targeting her as “a rich source of information” and not because “she was comprised,” presumably a typo for “compromised.”

Aristide, who was captured and sent to live in exile in 2004, said that the US kidnapped him and accused Washington of being behind it. Additionally, in 2022, the French Ambassador admitted that France and the US were behind the coup that removed Aristide, pointing to the Haitian President’s repeated demands that France return the “reparations” Haiti was forced to pay for its independence.

US officials have maintained that they had no involvement in the coup and only entered the country after to restore order.

In 1825, 21 years after Haiti gained its independence, a flotilla of French warships arrived off the coast of Haiti, demanding compensation for the property – including slaves and slave plantations – that France lost during the 1791 revolution. It took more than 122 years for Haiti to pay its enforced debt, which by that time had been transferred to The National City Bank of New York, a precursor to the modern financial services giant Citigroup.

It was Aristide’s second time being removed from power. In 1990, the then-37-year-old was elected in a landslide, becoming Haiti’s first democratically elected President. But seven months later, he was removed from the Presidential office by US-trained Haiti forces. Following a years-long bloody military junta that killed thousands, including the 1994 Robateau massacre, Washington reinstalled Aristide, who enjoyed support both abroad and at home. His hand-picked successor easily won the election in 1996 but after he became less popular, Aristide was elected again in 2001, securing more than 91% of the vote.

Then-US President George W Bush cut off US aid and worked to cut off international aid to the country, citing alleged irregularities in the election, including a boycott by the opposition. However, polls from the time showed that Aristide received mass support from the Haitian population.

The Gray Zone also laid out the evidence that Elmore was a CIA veteran using previously released reports. She was fingered as a CIA agent in a 1997 US Department of Justice probe into former US President Ronald Reagan’s administration operation to fund contras in Nicaragua using cocaine sales.

In that probe, a CIA operative, Celerino Castillo, claimed that he had evidence that the CIA trafficked cocaine to fund the contras and said that Elmore was his CIA handler while he operated in El Salvador. Elmore claimed during that probe that she merely worked at the embassy as a narcotics coordinator. She was also called to testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee investigation into the CIA’s involvement in drug trafficking but that testimony has never been released to the public.

The independent outlet also obtained a 2001 State Department email, showing that Elmore was CC:d on sensitive conversations between the State Department and Inter-American Bank Officials who sought to counter a Haitian government press release over the blocking and delaying of financial aid.

In 2010, then US President Barack Obama tapped former Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, one of whom sent US troops to Haiti and the other who cut off aid, to run the US Aid efforts following the devastating earthquake that shook the country.

On Sunday, several armed gangs attacked the National and Kwadèbouke prisons in Port-Au-Prince, noting that prison guards and prisoners had been killed in the attack.

“The National Police are taking all measures to find the escaped prisoners and arrest those responsible for these criminal acts as well as all their accomplices so that public order can be restored,” The Communication Ministry of Haiti wrote on Twitter.

According to US media, hundreds of inmates escaped, with some reports from the ground saying the number could be in the thousands. The attack came as interim Prime Minister Ariel Henry, who took power following the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, was abroad attempting to revive a plan to bring UN troops to stabilize the country.

Haiti has been hit with an increase in violence and protests calling on Henry to resign. Last month, a Haitian judge indicted Moise’s widow Martine Moise, Henry’s immediate predecessor Claude Joseph and former National Police chief Leon Charles for being responsible for Moise’s death. Joseph, who was injured during the attack on Moise accused Henry of being behind the assassination.

Henry has pledged to hold elections sometime next year.