The history of the Intelligence Community is a clown car packed with skeletons, and there was a time and place when Haiti’s Tonton Macoutes were riding shotgun.
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Another of the CIA’s Cold War Frankensteinian Monsters—the Macoute—didn’t die; it mutated. From the blood-soaked streets of Port-au-Prince to the neon underbelly of Philly, their progeny now traffic drugs, guns, and terror like corporate commodities, all under the imperial playbook that once ousted Aristide and exported KLA butchers. “Follow the money” works to connect dots, name more beasts, and, yes, burn a few bridges along the way.
While a classic counterintelligence campaign was waged by USAID funded journalism to deny Haitians eat cats (nevermind we actually have tons of proof NSFL:
https://archive.is/sXLP3), the biggest Haitian scandals involve the revolving door of intelligence assets involved in death squads, gang raping for political reasons, with drug trafficking, gun trafficking and child trafficking all on the menu.
While all intelligence agencies know how bad this is, they aren’t very keen on exposing this information to the public. You aren’t hearing about how your tax dollars funded groups that literally raped women to death and that is very intentional. The outrage if the average citizen know would result in common sense policy changes… like, “Hey Guys, let’s STOP funding death squads and child rape.” Best the CIA can do is ignore you. The worst? Hand you over to the Tonton Macoute.
A Dark HistoryHaiti was a petri dish of evil. It didn’t come out of nowhere. It was fostered, cultivated and grown into a monster.
1915-1920: Several thousand civilians were killed by the US occupying forces, along with the Haitian gendarmerie commanded by US officers. The Caco rebellion constituted the main armed challenge to the US occupation and had been organized and led by Charlemagne Péralte, who was killed on October 31, 1919. In 1918 and 1919, many Caco prisoners were systematically executed once they had been disarmed, following explicit, written orders (in Gaillard, 1981: 32-39, 49, 214, 307). Torture of Cacos or alleged Cacos by the Marines was also common practice; this included the hanging of individuals by their genitals, forced absorption of liquids, and the use of ceps, simultaneous pressure by two guns on both side of the tibia bone.
In addition to executions and violence against unarmed combatants, the US Army and its Haitian auxiliaries (the gendarmerie) allegedly committed massive killings and acts of violence against the civilian population. According to oral testimony gathered by historian Roger Gaillard (1981b, 1983), these included summary executions, rapes, setting houses on fire after gathering their inhabitants inside them, lynchings, and torching civilians alive; one local public figure was buried alive. A 1922 internal US army report recognized and justified the execution of women and children, presenting them as “auxiliaries” of the Cacos (in Gaillard, 1983: 259).
1937 (October): In the neighboring Dominican Republic, dictator Trujillo ordered the slaughter of 17,000 to 20,000 Haitian migrants and Dominicans of Haitian origin by the Dominican army (the conventional number in the Dominican Republic is 17,000, although Saez (1988: 60) puts it at 20,000 ; Turits (2002: 590) calculated a total of 15,000 killed). The killings were part of Operacion Perijil (“perijil,” parsley in Spanish, a word that Haitians were allegedly unable to pronounce without betraying their origin; those who failed to do so were killed on the spot). In the northeastern region alone, up to 15,000 individuals were killed, most of them with machetes, between the 2nd and the 8th of October. Soldiers used machetes rather than firearms to prevent alerting the surrounding Haitian communities, which were exterminated afterward.
1957 (June 15-16): The Haitian army killed between several hundred (Leconte, 1999) and three thousand (Pierre-Charles, 1973) supporters of President Fignolé -- who was popular among the disenfranchised sectors of the capital city -- after having overthrown him and forced him into exile.
1957-1986: The dictatorial Duvalier regimeFrançois Duvalier, known as Papa Doc, was elected president with the army’s support in 1957 and ruled Haiti until his death in 1971. His son, Baby Doc, then replaced him and ruled until 1986. Papa Doc’s regime, the more brutal of the two, is said to be responsible for 30,000 to 50,000 assassinations and executions. The Duvaliers relied on a secret armed militia called Tonton macoutes (its official name was the Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, or National Security Volunteers), which imposed a rule of terror on the Haitian population (Diederich and Burt, 2005). This regime qualified as a totalitarian one according to Trouilot (1990), who carried out a detailed study of the roots and forms of Duvalierism.
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The Macoute PlaybookLuckner Cambronne was a particularly fierce head of the “Tonton Macoutes” throughout the 1960’s and the beginning of the 1970’s, The
Volontaires de la Sécurité Nationale, more infamously known as the Tonton Macoute (or, in a twist of myth, “Uncle Gunnysack”), institutionalized brutality:
- Vodou-infused intimidation, tire burnings (a nod to Père Lebrun), public executions, and disappearances—the massacre of Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin in 1964 remains a grisly emblem. The "necklace" method, where victims were burned alive with tires around their necks, became a signature of their cruelty, amplified by figures like Luc Désir, a notorious Macoute commander in Port-au-Prince.
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- Their uniforms—dark sunglasses, blue denim shirts, and straw hats—became as iconic as the machetes they wielded, tools of both execution and terror. These were not merely symbols but instruments used to instill fear and project an image of ubiquitous power.
- Architects of a regime built on blood money, they siphoned off state funds while the Macoute executed terror with impunity. Their personal wealth, amassed through corruption and exploitation, stood in stark contrast to the widespread poverty they perpetuated. Luckner Cambronne was known as the "Vampire of the Caribbean" for his profiting from the sale of Haitian blood and cadavers to the West for medical uses. Critics accused his forces of picking people to murder to provide bodies for such shipments
- “The Vampire of the Caribbean” later faced U.S. indictment for heroin trafficking during the 1970s. Cambronne's network extended into international drug smuggling, illustrating the Macoute's deep entanglement with organized crime.
- A Macoute stalwart who staged a 1991 coup attempt, symbolizing the force’s post-Duvalier resurgence. His continued influence highlighted the resilience of Macoute's ideology and network even after the regime's fall.
- A shadowy financier for the Macoute, laundered drug money through Bahamas shell companies.
Clémard Joseph Charles's financial operations underscored the Macoute's sophisticated money-laundering schemes and offshore connections.
- Once a celebrated CIA asset turned “anti-gang hero,”
Guy Philippe later was convicted in Miami for drug trafficking in 2017—his career a testament to the blurry lines between state support and criminality. His trajectory exemplifies the complex and often contradictory relationships between Haitian figures, international agencies, and criminal enterprises.
- Commander of the Fort Dimanche prison, notorious for torturing and murdering political prisoners.
Madame Max Adolphe (née Rosalie Bosquet, also known as Max Rosalie Auguste); Her name became synonymous with the brutal repression of the Duvalier regime.
- The original Fort Dimanche was built by the French when Haiti was a colony prior to 1804 and fell into disrepair. It became a military facility built by the US Marines in the 1920s during the American occupation of Haiti. Already prior to Duvalier it may have been used for the handling of political prisoners. During the reign of Duvalier he and his Tonton Macoutes used the facility as an interrogation center and prison to incarcerate, torture, and murder political opponents. Also people who tried to escape from the island and were caught were brought to Fort Dimanche. His son, Jean-Claude Duvalier, continued to use it as an instrument of terror.
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- In the second half of 1993, bands of civilian thugs armed by the Haitian military were fashioned into the quasi-political organization known as the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (fraph). fraph's membership includes long-time Duvalierists, as well as Tontons Macoutes, attachés, and other army supporters. The organization's co-founders are Jodel Chamblain, a former Tonton Macoute, and Emmanuel Constant, the son of an army commander under François Duvalier Papa Doc. fraph has been nurtured by the military since its emergence in September 1993. For details on fraph's involvement in human rights abuses, see Human Rights Watch/Americas and National Coalition for Haitian Refugees, Terror Prevails in Haiti: Human Rights Violations and Failed Diplomacy (New York: Human Rights Watch, 1994)
https://www.refworld.org/reference/countryrep/hrw/1994/en/21708“Haiti’s Death Mask””In February, the U.N. Civilian Mission to Haiti, a human rights monitoring team, investigated 40 to 50 killings, 20 disappearances and nearly a dozen rapes in the capital of Port-au-Prince alone. For March, the team has already recorded more than 20 deaths.”
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/24/opinion/haiti-s-death-mask.htmlCIA, Coup d’État, and the 2004 Haiti Debacle- In a maneuver that echoed the darkest chapters of American interventionism, the CIA-backed coup overthrew President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. U.S. Marines even whisked him off to South Africa—a clear message that sovereign choice was for sale. Figures like Andy Apaid Jr., a wealthy businessman and leader of the Group of 184, played a key role in mobilizing opposition to Aristide, with support from the International Republican Institute (IRI).
- As U.S. ambassador (2003–2005), Foley’s explosive op-ed in the
Miami Herald decried Haiti as a “ticking time bomb.” A man steeped in covert operations, he not only facilitated Aristide’s ouster but later championed the export of the “Kosovo Model” to Haiti.
- USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives—tasked with “advancing U.S. foreign policy interests”—imported veterans from the
Kosovo Liberation Army in 2004. These battle-hardened paramilitaries were deployed to train Haitian factions, a grim experiment in transferring brutal counterinsurgency tactics across continents. The involvement of
Dyncorp, a private military contractor, in providing logistical support for this operation further illustrates the complex web of actors involved.
- Once a KLA warlord and U.S. asset,
Ramush Haradinaj’s legacy is stained with accusations of organ harvesting, torture, and ethnic cleansing. His story, recounted in indictments and international news, mirrors the violent methods later seen in Haiti.
- According to
The Lancet, over 8,000 Haitians were slaughtered in Port-au-Prince in the aftermath, with UN “peacekeepers”—the supposed harbingers of order—implicated in these massacres. Leaked cables and firsthand accounts attest to a campaign of terror designed to cement the coup’s aftermath. The role of MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) in allegedly turning a blind eye to human rights abuses further complicates the narrative.
- A notorious Miami gang, linked to over 30 homicides and drug operations exceeding $100 million, now collaborates with the Sinaloa Cartel. They’re the urban inheritors of Macoute brutality, wielding violence as a business tool. Investigations by the DEA have revealed the extent of their drug trafficking network and connections to Haitian criminal groups. “Gunwalking” provides both Sinaloa and Haitian organized crime with weapons.
- The charismatic yet ruthless leader of the
G9 Alliance, Chérizier's methods—infamous burnings and street-level terror—were linked to the 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Reports from the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH) have documented the G9's human rights abuses and links to political figures.
- This New York City-based cadre of kidnappers once demanded a $1 million ransom for missionary hostages in 2021, showcasing the global reach of Haitian criminal networks. The FBI's involvement in the case highlighted the transnational nature of these criminal operations.
- Over $1.2 billion in Venezuelan aid, intended for critical infrastructure, was funneled through opaque Panama shell companies (courtesy of Mossack Fonseca) and landed in the coffers of Haitian oligarch
Gilbert Bigio and other shadow financiers. Investigations by Haitian senators revealed the extent of the corruption and impunity surrounding the
PetroCaribe funds.- Jovenel Moïse asked for US State Department help in moving $80 million cash of these PetroCaribe funds, but the plan backfired. US Mercenaries including Navy SEALs and Delta Operators ended up in a Mexican standoff with remnants of the Tonton Macoute and Haitian police. Jovenel Moïse was later assassinated. Money is where, now?
- Awarded $220 million for agricultural programs in Haiti, audits later revealed $50 million went missing—diverted to consultants in U.S. suburbia.
- With board members including former CIA deputy John McLaughlin, DAI managed $150 million earmarked for “democracy promotion” that critics argue propped up pro-U.S. political elements.
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The Kosovo-Haiti Pipeline- Macoute-trained “pistoleiros” have been hired to terrorize Rio’s favelas, their brutal methods echoing the tactics honed in Haiti. Reports from human rights organizations have documented the presence of Haitian mercenaries in Brazil and their involvement in violence.
- Ex-FRAPH mercenaries now train Mai-Mai militias, as documented in a 2020 UN Panel Report, turning Haitian tactical brutality into an international export commodity.
- The state remains a nexus for Haitian-linked drug trafficking; Zoe Pound’s cocaine pipeline thrives in a landscape where DEA stings too often overlook politically connected traffickers.
- In 2023, law enforcement seized 1.2 tons of Haitian-linked fentanyl, underscoring the far-reaching consequences of Haiti’s kleptocratic networks.
A Rogues’ Gallery- From arming anti-Aristide gangs via the Dominican Republic in 2004 to providing protection for Baby Doc’s exile, the Agency’s fingerprints are indelibly inked on Haiti’s modern history.
- Beyond funding disaster relief, USAID’s shadow operations funneled money into training paramilitaries (via the Kosovo export) and orchestrated “orphan rescue” scams led by figures like Laura Silsby. Keep in mind, the children she was moving were NOT orphans. They had parents. These children were being brought to a refurbished resort with a hot tub. Who funded the refurbishment? Catholic priests across the street.
- In addition to this operation, groups of Clinton NGO donors like Michael Zelesky and Spencer Kimball were funding “orphan” schools in the same town. Remember, these children were not orphans. Silsby resurfaced as a “consultant” for Cerberus Capital Management, a private equity firm with defense sector investments.
- Silsby faced civil lawsuits for fraud, wrongful termination and unpaid wages mostly related to Personal Shopper, an Internet company that she founded in 1999 with James Hammons. Silsby and Hammons worked together at Hewlett-Packard.[26] Silsby became part of MYSTATE USA an emergency notification company headed by Claudia Bitner in 2011.MYSTATE USA changed its name to Alertsense. Alertsense has since started another company called Konexus because of bad press when its software was involved in the 2018 Hawaii false missile alert. Silsby married and now goes by the name Laura Gayler or Laura Silsby Gayler.
- Hired ex-Macoute operatives for post-earthquake “security” contracts in 2010 blurred the line between protection and predation.
- Imposed austerity measures exacerbated poverty and social unrest, creating conditions conducive to violence and instability. “Misery Industrial Complex”.
- Funded projects that critics argue benefited foreign corporations at the expense of Haitian communities.
Disaster Capitalism & Kleptocratic Elites- Post-2010 earthquake, contractors like KBR (a Halliburton subsidiary) and PAE—famed for profiteering in Iraq and Afghanistan—secured multimillion-dollar contracts, turning humanitarian relief into a cash cow.
- Once the CEO of New Life Children’s Refuge and later “recycled” as a consultant for Cerberus Capital Management, Silsby’s 2010 bust for trafficking 33 Haitian children (who were not orphans but purchased from desperate parents) epitomizes the intersection of greed and cruelty.
- Exorbitant telecom pricing moved in to take advantage of the misery, as well. Digicel, owned by Irish billionaire Denis O'Brien, has been the largest mobile network operator in Haiti since it entered the market in 2006. Natcom, a joint venture between the Haitian government and the Vietnamese military-run Viettel Group, began operations in 2011. These two companies control the majority of the Haitian telecom market.
- Telecoms secured $45 million in USAID contracts for phantom “digital infrastructure” projects—an example of state funds disappearing into the pockets of Haiti’s rich.
- As a UN envoy with close ties to Clinton Foundation donors, her muted response to election fraud under President Moïse illustrates the deep entanglement between humanitarian diplomacy and corporate interests.
- Florida-based financier linked to Sunrise Bank, allegedly involved in laundering misappropriated aid funds.
- Oligarch Gilbert Bigio accused of exploiting offshore havens to launder misappropriated aid funds. Haiti's wealthiest man, accused of profiting from the PetroCaribe scandal.
The Vulture Circus“Aid workers and assassins now share the same Rolodex.”
Haiti’s descent into kleptocracy is not merely a local failure but a global enterprise—a carefully engineered marketplace of misery. The Macoute’s descendants, trained by the CIA, bankrolled by USAID, and franchised by PMCs, have commodified despair. They trade in terror with the same nonchalance as Wall Street trades stocks. In this grotesque circus, the only certainty is that the empire of exploitation continues to expand—an arm hacked off by machete, here, a missing million, there, one covert operation at a time....
: Key News Events- Massacre of Marcel Numa and Louis Drouin, two exiled Haitian soldiers who attempted to overthrow Duvalier.
- Journalist Jean Dominique is assassinated after exposing Macoute-drug ties.
- The fall of the Duvalier regime and the official disbanding of the Tonton Macoute.
- Roger Lafontant's failed coup attempt to reinstate Duvalierism.
- The assassination of Antoine Izméry, a pro-Aristide businessman, by FRAPH, a paramilitary group linked to the Macoute.
- The CIA-backed coup ousts Aristide; KLA veterans arrive in Haiti to “restructure” local paramilitary forces.
- The UN “stabilizes” Haiti even as 85% of U.S.-bound cocaine slips through peacekeeper-patrolled ports.
- Laura Silsby’s trafficking bust shocks the humanitarian community; she is later pardoned and recycled into private equity.
- The release of the "Haiti: Best Chance to Avoid Complete Failure" report by the Center for Global Development, highlighting the failures of aid and governance in Haiti.
- Guy Philippe is convicted in Miami for drug trafficking.
-
Jimmy “Barbecue” Chérizier is implicated in the assassination of President
Jovenel Moïse.- The DEA seizes 1.2 tons of Haitian-linked fentanyl in Philadelphia, underscoring the transnational nature of the narcotics pipeline.
- Widespread gang violence leads to a state of emergency in Haiti.
“The Macoute didn’t need visas to migrate—they just rode shotgun on CIA cargo planes.”© Black Nine International, 2024
“Chaos is a balance sheet.”
Sources: Leaked cables, Jeb Sprague’s exposés,
The Lancet, DEA stings, Senate Committee reports, UN reports, reports from the National Human Rights Defense Network (RNDDH), and a few bourbon-fueled midnight rants.
Congressional subpoenas welcome.
