Tag: regime change

Secret cable: CIA orchestrated Haiti’s 2004 coup

A classified diplomatic cable obtained by The Grayzone reveals the role of a veteran CIA officer in violently overthrowing Haiti’s popular President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004. 

A spectacular jailbreak in Gonaïves, Haiti in August 2002 saw a bulldozer smash through the local prison walls, allowing armed supporters of Amiot “Cubain” Métayer, a gang leader jailed weeks earlier for harassing Haitian political figures, to overrun the facility. Métayer escaped, as did 158 other prisoners. Among them were perpetrators of the April 1994 Raboteau massacre, which left dozens of Haitians dead and displaced. The victims were supporters of popular anti-imperial President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Documents released to The Grayzone under FOIA – no doubt unintentionally – reveal that the jailbreak was part of a complex US intelligence operation, aimed at undermining Aristide’s presidency. At the heart of this operation was Janice L. Elmore, a CIA operative working under cover as a Department of State “Political Officer” in the Port-au-Prince US Embassy at the time.

The breakout set in motion a violent regime change campaign, which ultimately ousted Aristide from office on February 29 2004. After being deposed and flown to South Africa, Aristide claimed to have been “kidnapped” by US forces and directly accused Washington of orchestrating the plot. His nation quickly transformed into a despotic failed state, as ruthless paramilitaries ran roughshod over the population. US Marines and later UN troops were deployed to “keep the peace,” which, in practice, meant violently cracking down on not only armed anti-coup militants but also outraged demonstrators and civilians.

In 2022, the former French ambassador to Haiti admitted that France and the US did, in fact, orchestrate the “coup,” which he acknowledged was “probably” due to Aristide’s repeated demands that Haitians be returned the $21 billion in reparations they’d forcibly paid their former slave masters in Paris since 1825. The former ambassador told the New York Times that with Aristide in exile, “it made our job easier” to undermine Haitians’ demands for a refund.

US officials have repeatedly denied any involvement in Aristide’s overthrow, claiming they only intervened afterwards to restore order. But the secret diplomatic cable obtained by The Grayzone tells a very different story.

Dispatched from the US embassy in Port-au-Prince in September 2002 by then-US Ambassador Brian Dean Curran, the file places Elmore, apparently a veteran CIA operative, in a meeting with disloyal local police officers and coup plotters in Gonaïves the night prior to the jailbreak.

The file reads as confirmation of high-level US government involvement in the 2004 coup in Haiti, and raises profound questions about American involvement in other recent regime change campaigns throughout the hemisphere.

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How the CIA destabilises the world

There are three basic problems with the CIA: its objectives, methods, and unaccountability. Its operational objectives are whatever the CIA or the President of the United States defines to be in the U.S. interest at a given time, irrespective of international law or U.S. law. Its methods are secretive and duplicitous. Its unaccountability means that the CIA and president run foreign policy without any public scrutiny. Congress is a doormat, a sideshow.

As a recent CIA Director, Mike Pompeo, said of his time at the CIA: “I was the CIA director. We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

The CIA was established in 1947 as the successor to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). The OSS had performed two distinct roles in World War II, intelligence and subversion. The CIA took over both roles. On the one hand, the CIA was to provide intelligence to the US Government. On the other, the CIA was to subvert the “enemy,” that is, whomever the president or CIA defined as the enemy, using a wide range of measures: assassinations, coups, staged unrest, arming of insurgents, and other means.

It is the latter role that has proved devastating to global stability and the U.S. rule of law. It is a role that the CIA continues to pursue today. In effect, the CIA is a secret army of the U.S., capable of creating mayhem across the world with no accountability whatsoever.

When President Dwight Eisenhower decided that Africa’s rising political star, democratically elected Patrice Lumumba of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), was the “enemy,” the CIA conspired in his 1961 assassination, thus undermining the democratic hopes for Africa. He would hardly be the last African president brought down by the CIA.

In its 77-year history, the CIA has been held to serious public account just once, in 1975. In that year, Idaho Senator Frank Church led a Senate investigation that exposed the CIA’s shocking rampage of assassinations, coups, destabilisation, surveillance, and Mengele-style torture and medical “experiments.”

The expose by the Church Committee of the CIA’s shocking malfeasance has recently been chronicled in a superb book by the investigative reporter James Risen, The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator’s Fight to Save Democracy.

That single episode of oversight occurred because of a rare confluence of events.

In the year before the Church Committee, the Watergate scandal had toppled Richard Nixon and weakened the White House. As successor to Nixon, Gerald Ford was unelected, a former Congressman, and reluctant to oppose the oversight prerogatives of the Congress. The Watergate scandal, investigated by the Senate Ervin Committee, had also empowered the Senate and demonstrated the value of Senate oversight of Executive Branch abuses of power. Crucially, the CIA was newly led by Director William Colby, who wanted to clean up the CIA operations. Also, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, author of pervasive illegalities also exposed by the Church committee, had died in 1972.

In December 1974, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, then as now a great reporter with sources inside the CIA, published an account of illegal CIA intelligence operations against the U.S. antiwar movement. The Senate Majority Leader at the time, Mike Mansfield, a leader of character, then appointed Church to investigate the CIA. Church himself was a brave, honest, intelligent, independent-minded, and intrepid Senator, characteristics chronically in short supply in U.S. politics.

If only the CIA’s rogue operations had been consigned to history as a result of the crimes exposed by the Church Committee, or at the least had brought the CIA under the rule of law and public accountability. But that was not to be. The CIA has had the last laugh —or better said, has brought the world to tears—by maintaining its preeminent role in U.S. foreign policy, including overseas subversion.

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Putin Claims War In Ukraine Was Started By A CIA Coup

During the interview with Tucker Carlson, Russian leader Vladimir Putin stated that the war in Ukraine “did not start in 2022,” but rather was a result of a 2014 coup in the country, directly backed by the CIA.

Putin recalled the moment he decided he had to invade, noting “initially it was the coup in Ukraine that provoked the conflict.”

Putin claimed that a decade ago the United States proposed a joint effort to for a diplomatic settlement in Ukraine and the then President Yanukovich agreed not to deploy troops or police. However, an armed opposition, which Putin alleges was run by the CIA, orchestrated a coup in Kiev.

Putin further stated that “the representatives of three countries, Germany, Poland, and France, arrived. They were the guarantors of the signed agreement. Despite that, the opposition committed a coup and all of these countries pretended that they didn’t remember they were guarantors of the peaceful settlement.”

He continued, “President Yanukovich agreed to all conditions which included holding an early election he had no chance of winning”, Putin stated, adding “Why the coup? Why the victims? Why threaten Crimea? Why threaten the Donbas? That’s what I don’t understand.”

“The CIA did its job to complete the coup,” he continued, adding “The political mistake was colossal. All this could be done without victims.”

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Silencing the Lambs: How Propaganda Works

In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer.
She told me that the “patriotic messages” of her films were dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the German public.

Did that include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie? I asked.  “Yes, especially them,” she said. 

I think of this as I look around at the propaganda now consuming Western societies. 

Of course, we are very different from Germany in the 1930s. We live in information societies. We are globalists. We have never been more aware, more in touch, better connected. 

Or do we in the West live in a Media Society where brainwashing is insidious and relentless, and perception is filtered according to the needs and lies of state and corporate power? 

The United States dominates the Western world’s media. All but one of the top 10 media companies are based in North America. The internet and social media – Google, Twitter, Facebook – are mostly American owned and controlled.

In my lifetime, the United States has overthrown or attempted to overthrow more than 50 governments, mostly democracies. It has interfered in democratic elections in 30 countries. It has dropped bombs on the people of 30 countries, most of them poor and defenceless. It has attempted to murder the leaders of 50 countries.  It has fought to suppress liberation movements in 20 countries. 

The extent and scale of this carnage is largely unreported, unrecognised, and those responsible continue to dominate Anglo-American political life.

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US Media Suppressed Their Government’s Role in Ousting Brazil’s Government

In a new peer-reviewed academic article in Latin American Perspectives (11/19/23), “Anticorruption and Imperialist Blind Spots: The Role of the United States in Brazil’s Long Coup,” Sean T. Mitchell, Rafael Ioris, Kathy Swart, Bryan Pitts and I prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the US Department of Justice was a key actor in what we call Brazil’s “long coup.” This was the period from 2014, beginning with the lead up to the illegitimate 2016 impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, to the November 2019 release of then-former, now-current President Lula da Silva from political imprisonment.

“For over half a century, intervening against democratically elected governments has been only half the story,” we wrote; “the second half involves justifying, minimizing or denying US involvement.” The article criticized US scholars on Latin America for ignoring a significant body of evidence of this involvement. It called on Latin Americanists to return to the anti-imperialist tradition that established their field as a leading source of informed criticism of US foreign policy.

In this article, I will make the same call to US journalists who lived in Brazil during this period who remained silent about their government’s role in removing Brazil’s front-running presidential candidate in the 2018 elections, opening the door for the right-wing extremist No. 2 candidate, Jair Bolsonaro.

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Protests In Suweida Reminiscent Of 2011 — Who Is Behind Them?

Twelve years after the initiation of the Western-backed destabilization in Syria, it appears the Western intelligence and military apparatus is once again attempting to stir up a “popular” revolution against the government of Bashar al-Assad. This time, however, not only do they continue to use their proxy fighters in the form of terrorists and Kurdish fanatics, they are also attempting to use the domestic population to further fracture Syrian society.

Having suffered through over a dozen years of horrific warfare that saw their country largely destroyed and an almost unimaginable loss of life, Syrians were then saddled with American (and thus Western) sanctions that have brought the entire Syrian economy to a halt, causing as much suffering as the war itself at least in terms of living standards for the average Syrian.

With the frontlines largely quiet except for daily shelling and occasional airstrikes, Syrians are forced to reckon with the fact that, even with the guns silent, their lives will not return to normal or to any sense of normalcy. Basic necessities like electricity, fuel, medical care, and food are are scarce and have been scarce for some time. Certainly, they have been scarce long enough for the words of their government to “hold on just a little longer” to start feeling hollow. Indeed, starving Syrians have begun to look at Syrian government officials whose lives do continue on as normal with the resentful eyes of the hungry that only someone with an empty belly can truly understand.

This resentment is what Western powers are attempting to take advantage of.

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U.S. HELPED PAKISTAN GET IMF BAILOUT WITH SECRET ARMS DEAL FOR UKRAINE, LEAKED DOCUMENTS REVEAL

SECRET PAKISTANI ARMS sales to the U.S. helped to facilitate a controversial bailout from the International Monetary Fund earlier this year, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement, with confirmation from internal Pakistani and American government documents. The arms sales were made for the purpose of supplying the Ukrainian military — marking Pakistani involvement in a conflict it had faced U.S. pressure to take sides on.

The revelation is a window into the kind of behind-the-scenes maneuvering between financial and political elites that rarely is exposed to the public, even as the public pays the price. Harsh structural policy reforms demanded by the IMF as terms for its recent bailout kicked off an ongoing round of protests in the country. Major strikes have taken place throughout Pakistan in recent weeks in response to the measures.

The protests are the latest chapter in a year-and-a-half-long political crisis roiling the country. In April 2022, the Pakistani military, with the encouragement of the U.S., helped organize a no-confidence vote to remove Prime Minister Imran Khan. Ahead of the ouster, State Department diplomats privately expressed anger to their Pakistani counterparts over what they called Pakistan’s “aggressively neutral” stance on the Ukraine war under Khan. They warned of dire consequences if Khan remained in power and promised “all would be forgiven” if he were removed.

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Chile’s 9/11: how the CIA and Pinochet destroyed Allende and Chile’s democracy

On 9-11, 1973, the Chilean army assisted by the CIA, staged a military coup against the democratically elected Chilean president, Salvador Allende, which ended up turning Chile from a democartic country into a brutal dictatorship headed by a US backed dictator, Augusto Pinochet. On 9/11/1973, during the air raids and ground attacks that preceded the coup, Allende gave his last speech, in which he vowed to stay in the presidential palace, denouncing offers for safe passage should he choose exile over confrontation. President Allende died during the coup. The junta officially declared that he committed suicide with a rifle given to him by Fidel Castro, however recently discovered documents suggest that he was murdered.

Chile had for decades been hailed as a beacon of democracy and political stability while the rest of South America had been plagued by military juntas and dictators. The collapse of Chilean democracy ended a streak of democratic governments in Chile, which had held democratic elections since 1932. Over 3,000 Chileans were murdered by Pinochet after he became dictator and over 40,000 were were imprisoned and tortured. The systematic human rights violations that were committed by the military government of Chile, under General Augusto Pinochet, included gruesome acts of physical and sexual abuse, as well as psychological damage.

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Newly-Released Top Secret Docs Show Nixon’s Intel Briefings On US-Backed Chilean Coup

Two fifty-year old documents related to the coup in Chile were released by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department last week. The democratically elected, left wing government of President Salvador Allende was overthrown in 1973 by the Chilean military, with covert CIA backing. A US-supported dictatorship led by General Augusto Pinochet was subsequently installed.

President Richard Nixon’s daily briefs related to the coup on September 8th as well as the 11th – the day the Chilean military seized control of the government – were released. This declassification followed repeated calls for increased transparency by progressive members of Congress, human rights groups, and Santiago.

Nixon and then National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger strongly opposed the leftist Allende government and attempted to prevent its rule. George Washington University’s National Security Archive issued a statement which says “[the documents] contained information that went to President Nixon as a military takeover that he and [Kissinger] had encouraged for three years came to fruition.”

Nixon’s daily brief for September 8, 1973 reads “a number of reports have been received… indicating the possibility of an early military coup… Navy men plotting to overthrow the government now claim army and air force support.”

The document – written three days before the coup – continues with a discussion of how a fascist paramilitary group “has been blocking roads and provoking clashes with the national police, adding to the tension caused by continuing strikes and opposition political moves. President Allende earlier this week said he believed the armed forces will ask for his resignation if he does not change his economic and political policies.”

On September 11th, Nixon’s daily brief said “Plans by navy officers to trigger military action against the Allende government are supported by some key army units… The navy is also counting on help from the air force and national police.”

After Allende’s initial refusal to resign, tanks opened fire, Air Force aircraft launched rocket attacks and bombed the presidential palace. Troops stormed in and Allende shot himself.

“What followed [the coup] was a vicious, decades-long reign of terror and repression during which tens of thousands of Chileans were killed, tortured, or disappeared by the Pinochet regime, which continued to receive support from the CIA,” as Common Dreams’ Jake Johnson has written.

Indeed, in 2000, the CIA conceded that “many of Pinochet’s officers were involved in systematic and widespread human rights abuses… Some of these were contacts or agents of the CIA or [US] military.”

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A CIA-backed 1953 coup in Iran haunts the country with people still trying to make sense of it

Seventy years after a CIA-orchestrated coup toppled Iran’s prime minister, its legacy remains both contentious and complicated for the Islamic Republic as tensions stay high with the United States.

While highlighted as a symbol of Western imperialism by Iran’s theocracy, the coup unseating Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh — over America’s fears about a possible tilt toward the Soviet Union and the loss of Iranian crude oil — appeared backed at the time by the country’s leading Shiite clergy.

But nowadays, hard-line Iranian state television airs repeated segments describing the coup as showing how America can’t be trusted, while authorities bar the public from visiting Mossadegh’s grave in a village outside of Tehran.

Such conflicts are common in Iran, where “Death to America” can still be heard at Friday prayers in Tehran while many on its streets say they’d welcome a better relationship with the U.S. But as memories of the coup further fade away along with those alive during it, controlling which allegory Iranians see in it has grown more important for both the country’s government and its people.

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