Toto Constant convicted of fraud, guilty of mass murder

Emmanuel “Toto” Constant was convicted at the end of July for bank and mortgage fraud. He faces 15 to 45 years when he is sentenced Sept. 10. Constant just finished a two-year sentence for mortgage fraud in Suffolk County, N.Y., earlier this year.

Constant is wanted in Haiti for mass murder and rape. He was the organizer of the so-called Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, the paramilitary group the army used from 1991 to 1994 to terrorize the Haitian people and keep them in line. FRAPH was responsible for 3,000 to 5,000 murders and countless rapes.

Constant has admitted in open court that he was the “leader” of FRAPH, not just a member. He also claimed, on the TV show “60 Minutes” in 1995, that the CIA paid him $700 a month while he was running FRAPH. (“Frap” in Creole, Haiti’s language, means “punch” or “blow.”)

Whether or not Constant was a CIA “asset” in Haiti, he had enough support in the U.S. government to get de facto political asylum when the Haitian government requested his extradition in 1996.

Before the trial started last spring, the Department of Homeland Security urged Constant’s immediate deportation to Haiti. Haitian and U.S. human rights attorneys and activists told the judge hearing the case about Constant’s violent leadership of FRAPH and asked him to set aside the plea bargain, which he did.

With the unsettled state of Haiti’s justice system and the powerful influence of ex-Tonton Macoutes—another violent paramilitary organization—and ex-FRAPH members barely checked, these activists felt that Constant would go free if he was returned to Haiti.

Ray Laforest, a well-known Haitian activist in the International Haiti Support Network, was one of those opposed to Constant’s return to Haiti to serve his fraud sentence. He told Haiti-Liberté at the start of the trial, “We want people to be aware of the trial. Even though they are just prosecuting Toto today for grand larceny, we hope that one day this will lead to his being judged for his crimes against humanity in Haiti.” (July 5)

What Constant’s trials and convictions prove is that the United States is far more interested in punishing attacks on its financial institutions than it is in bringing justice to the victims of mass rape, murder and torture in Haiti.