Pro-Government Militias

Pro-Government Militia Website

Documentation for Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) / Attaches / Zenglendons

Sept. 18, 1993
The Gazette

The Tonton Macoutes still live. Only the name has changed. They may be called attaches or zenglendons (bandits), but they're the same paramilitary thugs who tortured and murdered with impunity throughout the long, blood-soaked years of "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, "Baby Doc."

Oct. 15, 1993
The Washington Post

Senior diplomats and civilian officials said they have heard Francois, on police radios, directing attaches' movements. The sources said that in part to make up for the loss of money from the elite, the attaches are given license to extort, rob or collect kickbacks from state agencies.

Oct. 28, 1993
USA Today

The U.S. Embassy estimates there are about 500 attaches now on the payroll of the military and the police.

Oct. 28, 1993
The Associated Press

Bodyguards mixed Thursday with rightist politicians who had come to curry favor with Constant and his Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, an army-backed political movement that claims 150,000 members nationwide since forming in August.

Nov. 12, 1993
The New York Times

At the time of the coup Colonel Francois, a former member of the Presidential Guard under General Biamby, was the head of a downtown police station known as the Cafeteria. Since then, the Colonel's influence has grown dramatically as he has built a network of civilian police auxiliaries known as attaches, who operate violently as political enforcers and extortionists.
Colonel Francois is believed to have as many as 1,500 auxiliaries under his control, along with the 1,500 or so soldiers under his command....modeled on the Duvalier family militia. Recruits often pay a small fee to join the force, are given official identity cards and work in close liaison with the police, performing ... "the dirty work that soldiers in uniform still shy from."
These tasks include almost nightly raids on some of the capital's poorest neighborhoods, where residents are held in check by wild sprees of gunfire and assassinations carried out against leaders of grass-roots political groups.

Nov. 22, 1993
The Irish Times

Gangs of heavily armed attache's cruise poor areas at night,
Supplied with Uzis, shot guns and revolvers, they hustle for a cut of protections rackets and the lucrative market in contraband goods that has emerged since the international community first imposed economic sanctions against Haiti's military leaders shortly after the 1991 coup.
Many attache's are former Tontons Macoutes,

April 9, 1994
The Globe and Mail

Well financed and supported by the army, Haiti's only real power, Fraph
has metastasized throughout the country. Now, brightly painted Fraph
offices, sometimes wrapped in huge blue-and-red Haitian flags, can be
found in distant villages. Depending on which Fraph official one talks to,
the organization's membership is either 150,000 or 300,000, and growing.
Human-rights monitors, however, say that in
the slums here, Fraph has been paying people between $13 and $24 to join –
Sometimes along with the cards go firearms and the prestige and power that
carrying them brings.

Sept. 21, 1994
The New York Times

The thugs were presumed to be so-called attaches, who have been recruited by the armed forces to help in a terror campaign against supporters of the exiled President, the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Attaches, the spiritual and in some cases actual descendants of the Tontons Macoute, the terror-force created by President Francois Duvalier more than 30 years ago, sometimes work with uniformed army and police officers and sometimes on their own at tasks that range from the Haitian military's version of crowd control to assassination, kidnapping, torture, rape and arson.
There are perhaps as many as 2,000 attaches, mainly operating in Port-au-Prince.
Some attaches are members of a relatively new political organization known as the Front for Advancement and Progress, which is also closely identified with the Tontons Macoute. Distinguishing between attaches, members of the Front and soldiers and police officers in civilian clothes is often impossible.

Oct. 22, 1994
BBC Summary of World Broadcasts

Parliamentary sources report that the Haitian Senate on 19th October passed a law prohibiting paramilitary groups. The main group at which this ban is aimed is the Revolutionary Front for the Promotion and Progress of Haiti, FRAPH.

April 1, 1996
The Globe and Mail

Between Mr. Aristide's ouster in a 1991 coup and his 1994 restoration
to office, the Central Intelligence Agency paid informants from the
paramilitary, anti-Aristide Front for the Advancement and Progress of
Haiti, according to recently declassified information

Jan. 1, 2008
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti

Declassified records have revealed that the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (“DIA”) helped create and fund a paramilitary group called The Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (“FRAPH”).75 In an article appearing in the Nation, FRAPH leader Emmanuel “Toto” Constant told the reporter that he was approached by Colonel Patrick Collins, who was the DIA attaché in Haiti at the time, about forming a front “that could balance the Aristide movement.” (p. 651)

Source: Jordan Dollar "HAITI IS BLACK! RACIAL ESSENTIALISM AND UNITED STATES INVOLVEMENT IN THE 2004 REMOVAL OF PRESIDENT ARISTIDE " – Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. 2008

Jan. 1, 2012
Historical Dictionary of Haiti

Paramilitary group organized by Emmanuel “Toto” Constant in 1993 to counteract support for deposed president Jean-Bertand Aristide. Constant, a paid informant of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) from 1992 to 1994, claims that Patrick Collins from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) persuaded him to establish FRAPH. Ostensibly, the purpose of the group was to gather intelligence on the activities of Aristide’s supporters and undermine Aristide’s appeal to the masses. Although officials from Bill Clinton’s administration denied allegations that the United States was tied to FRAPH, evidence surfaced that the U.S. government had played a role in establishing and funding the group.

Human rights activists allege that FRAPH’s nefarious activities are responsible for the death of over 3000 Haitians.

Source: Michael Hall "Historical Dictionary of Haiti" (2012)