Front for the development and progress of Haiti

On September 29, 1991, a military junta led by General Raoul Sedras ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the president of Haiti, who was elected a year earlier. This coup reflected the dissatisfaction of the leading security officials, duvalists and drug mafias with Aristide’s left-oriented policy.

A significant part of the population of Haiti protested against the coup. The international community, including the American administrations of George W. Bush and Bill Clinton , also did not recognize the Haitian junta. The regime of General Sedras is confronted with internal tension and external isolation.

The far-right forces formed the structures of suppression of the supporters of Aristide. Chief among these was the Revolutionary Armed Front for Progress of Haiti ( FRAPH ), established in 1993, later renamed the Haiti Development and Progress Front . The abbreviation Frappe was often used as a name, in French sports jargon and in Creole language meaning “Beat” , and in common parlance “ Gopnik ” . The organization was led by CIA informer Emmanuel Constant , duvalist fighter Louis-Zhodel Chamblain and police chief Michel Francois . Constant acted as a political leader and a public person, Shamblen commanded the armed forces, Francois provided links with the authorities.

FRAPH acted in close contact with the army and the police. The declared anti-communism provided financial and logistical support to the American special services. Hostility to Aristide attracted the sympathies of the rightist circles.

Militants were recruited among supporters of the Duvalier dynasty, criminals and lyumphnosti. They went through army military training and were used by the junta as assault troops. The FRAPH ideology was based on duvalerism and was compared with neo-fascism ^[1] . The organization was viewed as a “clone of the tone-makuts ”.

Members of the Front are responsible for numerous reprisals against the supporters of Aristide, murder and rape. In particular, the Minister of Justice in the government of Aristide Guy Malary , and the entrepreneur and human rights activist Antoine Izmery , were killed ^[2] . On April 22, 1994, the FRAPH militants actively participated in the massacre in Raboto , a suburb of Gonaïves , where Aristide and his supporters were the most popular. Killed from 30 to 50 people ^[3] .

In October 1994, under the threat of a US military invasion, the junta of Sedras gave up power. Jean-Bertrand Aristide returned to Haiti with the support of the US Marine Corps and took the presidency. FRAPH tried unsuccessfully to counteract this by acting under anti-American slogans ^[4] .

American soldiers with the support of the population occupied the headquarters of FRAPH. Instruments of torture and photographs of the murders were discovered. The Americans hardly rescued the militants in the office from lynching ^[5] .

After the return of Aristide, FRAPH was disbanded, the leaders emigrated. Constant, Chamblain, Francois sentenced in absentia by a Haitian court to life imprisonment on charges of murder. Subsequently, Emmanuel Constant was arrested and convicted in the United States for financial fraud.

In 2004, FRAPH activists, including Chamblain returning to Haiti, joined Guy Philippe in revolt and participated in the second overthrow of President Aristide ^[6] .

The political ally of the leaders of FRAPH, especially Michel Francois, is Michel Marteille , President of Haiti in 2011–2016 ^[7] .

• Front of National Reconstruction