Who's Schooling Who?How Guy Phillipe Got his Groove Back

Guy Phillipe has become a bit too big for his britches. He is threatening to kiss and tell about his clandestine involvement with one anonymous U.S. government agency. Rumors are that he has written a book detailing their involvement.

The relationship has been steady ever since Guy was schooled by the United States as an army officer in Ecuador. It progressed to his integration into the new Haitian National Police in 1995. There his first command post was in Ouanaminthe, on the northern border with the Dominican Republic. Later, in about 1997 to 1999, he served as police chief for Delmas, a large urban district of Port-au-Prince. According to Human Rights Watch (HRW) during his tenure there, the UN/OAS International Civilian Mission learned that dozens of suspected gang members were summarily executed, mainly by police under the command of Inspector Berthony Bazile, Philippe’s deputy.

According to HRW, on October 18, 2000, Haiti’s prime minister announced that Philippe and other officers were plotting a coup d’etat. Before they were arrested, however, the men escaped over the border to the Dominican Republic.

The recent "attempted" arrest of Guy Phillipe at his home in Les Cayes is reminiscent of the arrest of Manuel Noriega. The Panamanian dictator was considered "outstanding" ¹⁾ at the School of the Americas (aka School of Assassins and renamed in 2001 the “Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation") based in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Noriega was on the CIA payroll up until the mid '80s when he ran afoul of the U.S. which suspected him of spying for Fidel Castro and Daniel Ortega; helping Cuba circumvent the US economic embargo; helping to get weapons for the Sandinistas and for the guerrillas in El Salvador and Colombia; transferring high technology to Eastern Europe.

Coincidentally, some DEA agents began to "investigate" Noreiga's drug activities. Noreiga was soon indicted in 1988 on Federal drug charges. You know the relationship is going south when your partner invades your country, ostensibly to capture you for your cheating ways and you end up in a Florida prison serving a forty-year sentence for drug trafficking.

A news item on Fox News on Thursday, July 26, 2007 announced: "Hearing Set for Ex-Dictator Manuel Noriega Regarding Request for Extradition to France"

Noriega, 71, was convicted in 1992 of drug and racketeering charges involving his acceptance of bribes from Colombia's Medellin cartel to allow shipments of U.S.-bound cocaine through Panama. His 30-year prison term was reduced for good behavior, and he is scheduled to be released Sept. 9.

It's not all bad news for Guy and Manuel, they may get the Former Dictator's Retirement plan like Raoul Cedras and Philippe Biamby who are now living in Panama courtesy of U.S. taxpayers or Jean-Claude Duvalier, who before he ran out of money and announced in 2004 that he would like to return to Haiti, luxuriated on money he stole from the Haitian people on the Cote d'Azur in France.

Perhaps that's why the French are seeking to extradite Mr. Noriega to France on a conviction in absentia on drug trafficking-related charges; they've got a better plan. Someone, please, alert Guy Phillipe if you see him on the Miami streets. Life's better on the French Riviera!

1. 1967 Finishes courses at SOA including Infantry Officer, Combat Intelligence Officer, Military Intelligence (Counter-Intelligence Officer Course), and Jungle Operations. An instructor calls him "outstanding." -- John Dinges, Our Man in Panama, 1991