Six of the men were arrested in the Dominican Republic at the Haitian border and the other two in Port-au-Prince after nearly a week of rumors that a coup was about to be carried off. All of those arrested were members of the Haitian National Police.

Haitian President Rene Preval on Wednesday said, "There are well-founded rumors. Today we can say that we are controlling the situation."

Authorities said the plot was allegedly trying to derail plans for Haiti's presidential elections next month. The elections still are not assured of occurring, however, since the main opposition parties are boycotting them as a result of alleged problems during this year's parliamentary elections and officials said the presidential polls could be postponed.

(C) 2000 UPI.

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The following section is from an article that appeared in The Washington Post on 2nd February 2001:

The (Democratic) Convergence was formed as a broad group with help from the International Republican Institute, an organization that promotes democracy that is closely identified with the U.S. Republican Party. It includes former Aristide allies -- people who helped him fight Haiti's dictators, then soured as they watched him at work. But it also includes former backers of the hated Duvalier family dictatorship and of the military officers who overthrew Aristide in 1991 and terrorized the country for three years.

The most determined of these men, with a promise of anonymity, freely express their desire to see the U.S. military intervene once again, this time to get rid of Aristide and rebuild the disbanded Haitian army. "That would be the cleanest solution," said one opposition party leader. Failing that, they say, the CIA should train and equip Haitian officers exiled in the neighboring Dominican Republic so they could stage a comeback themselves."

Captured former soldier reveals names of alleged coup plotters. Written by Charles Arthur for the Haiti Support Group, 21 December 2001 (sources: Reuters, AP, Haiti Press Network, Haiti Progres)

Former FAD'H sergeant, Pierre Richardson, said he attended meetings in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo to plan the attack along with Guy Philippe, former police chief of the northern city of Cap-Haitien, and Jean-Jacques Nau, former police chief of the Delmas suburb of Port-au-Prince.

According to the police, Richardson, who has a bullet wound in his leg after Monday's assault on the presidential palace, had been stopped on a road near the border with the neighbouring Dominican Republic. When apprehended by police, he was said to have been carrying a wad of cash and an M16 rifle. The police say that Richardson had been involved in the July 28 attacks on the national Police Academy and three police stations, which left five dead and 14 wounded. Apparently, he later fled to Dominican Republic where he was granted temporary residence this month.

At a press conference at the main Port-au-Prince police station, Richardson said 23 or 24 attackers stormed the palace in an attempt to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "It was a coup d'etat," Richardson said. "The plan was to enter the National Palace."

Guy François
Richardson, the only palace attacker caught alive so far, spoke to reporters a day after one of those he implicated, former FAD'H colonel, Guy François, was arrested for helping to plan the failed coup. In 1989, when François was commander of the Dessalines barracks in central Port-au-Prince, he had conspired with other officers in an attempt to overthrow the then dictator Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril. When the plan was foiled, François fled to Venezuela. It is unclear when he returned to Haiti.

Reuters reports police chief Dady Simeon saying that François was arrested at Port-au-Prince International Airport late on Wednesday as he attempted to board a flight bound for Venezuela. Other news agencies report that François was arrested in Port-au-Prince while driving a car with Dominican license plates. The police have not said what charges he faces. François' daughter, speaking to reporters, denied that François had any involvement in the attacks, and said he was at home on Sunday night.

Guy Philippe
Richardson revealed that at the meeting in Santo Domingo, former Cap-Haitien police chief, Guy Philippe, "told us that former Colonel Guy François would organise a backup for us in Haiti." But when the group began the attack, no backup force materialised, he said. His account appears to confirm Haitian police officials' claim to have intercepted radio transmissions in which the attackers identified their leader as Philippe.

Philippe, who is also an ex-soldier who had been assigned to the police force that replaced the army, sought refuge in Dominican Republic in October 2000 along with seven others accused of plotting a coup. (Details of the October 2000 plot appeared in the weekly newspaper, Haiti Progres, at that time. Apparently, Philippe, Nau, and other former police chiefs who had been fired from the force, together with former soldiers and civilians, had two meetings at the private residence of a US military attaché in Haiti, a certain Major Douyon, on October 8 and October 11 2000. Also present or at least expected, according to an unconfirmed report by Radio Kiskeya on October 24 2000, was the US chargé d'affaires, Leslie Alexander. When the Haitian government found out about the meetings, Philippe, Nau and six other police chiefs fled to the Dominican Republic, where they applied for political asylum.)

Philippe later moved to Ecuador, but he flew back to Dominican Republic two weeks before last Monday's assault, Dominican officials said. After the attack, he returned to Ecuador, where on Thursday he was being held by immigration police in Quito while he appealed a government decision to deport him to Panama, the country from which his flight had arrived. Haitian government officials have asked Ecuador to extradite him. Philippe, who had phoned Radio Carnival in Miami from the Dominican Republic to deny involvement, meanwhile told reporters in Quito, "How am I going to mobilise troops? By remote control?"

Five attackers killed
Police said that the one attacker to die during the shoot-out at the National Palace was Chavret Milot, also a former soldier. Police chief Simeon said that four other gunmen had been killed by a civilian crowd on Monday when they were forced to abandon their vehicle after it was damaged by heavy police fire in the Thomazeau neighborhood in western Port-au-Prince. Government sources said the car they were driving had Dominican plates, and speculated that the men were trying to reach Haiti's border.

Richardson's revelations contradict the accusations of opposition leaders who claim the government staged the attack as a pretext to crack down on dissent. In the days following the attempted coup, government supporters have set fire to Convergence party offices and houses belonging to Convergence party leaders. But the self-confessed attempted putschist also said he did not think any member of the opposition coalition, the Democratic Convergence, had participated in planning the failed coup.

Meanwhile, an unconfirmed report from a foreign resident in Port-au-Prince claims that President Aristide's home in the suburb of Tabarre, some distance away from the National Palace, was shot at during Sunday night's coup attempt. An email message contained the following section, "Very early in the morning (around 2:00 am) on December 17, 2001 armed gunmen, who were not dressed as troops, shot at the home of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Although the gunmen did not try to invade the home of the President, they did open fire while he was home with his wife, Mildred, and family. The President and his family were scared, (but) unharmed (and) then taken to safety by the Haitian police. ..........."

But he denies charge that he's plotting Aristide's ouster

Guy Philippe told The Associated Press that he wasn't plotting Aristide's ouster but that the time for a peaceful solution has passed. He wouldn't say, however, whether he would take up arms in the future.

Dominican authorities released Philippe, a 35-year-old former Haitian police chief known for his flashy cars, expensive taste and strong-armed tactics to battle crime in the impoverished Caribbean nation, Thursday after finding no evidence he and four others were conspiring against the Haitian government. Haitian authorities told their Dominican counterparts Philippe and others were plotting against the Haitian government from neighboring Dominican Republic.

"I would support a coup," Philippe said in Spanish during an interview in a Santo Domingo hotel. "We have to get rid of the dictator."

Philippe fled to Ecuador in late 2000 after being accused of fomenting violence, but later settled in the Dominican Republic, where he said he was when gunmen stormed Haiti's National Palace in a pre-dawn attack December 17, 2001. Aristide was not there at the time, but at least 10 were killed in the attack and violence that followed.

"Dominican authorities have the right to consider he doesn't threaten the national security of the Dominican Republic, but we consider his release shows a lack of cooperation on their part with Haiti," Haitian government spokesman Mario Dupuy said.

The two countries, which share the island of Hispaniola, have historically had rocky relations that date back centuries. In the late 1930s, troops taking orders from Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo massacred at least 20,000 Haitians along the border. Both sides have tried to mend the relationship since.

The Haitian government has also been at loggerheads with opposition members since May 2000 legislative elections that were swept by Aristide's Lavalas Family party. Observers called the races flawed.

Haiti: Past week's events indicate plot
The Haitian government has alleged that several events this week illustrate a pattern of subversive acts carried out by the opposition to destabilize the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Opposition party spokesmen denied the allegation.

The Haitian government has said the detentions of Philippe and four other Haitians in the border town of Dajabon are linked to an attack Wednesday on the hydroelectric plant in Haiti's Central Plateau district, about 34 miles [55 kilometers] north of the Haitian capital.

After killing two guards, about 20 armed men in uniforms of the disbanded Haitian army shot up and set fire to the plant's control tower, cutting off power to the area and to the capital.

On Saturday, a government spokesman said police have arrested a U.S. citizen on charges of importing arms to Haiti illegally.

James White Glenn was arrested Friday in west-coast Gonaives in possession of army uniforms, assault weapons, munitions, and grenade launchers, Dupuy said.

Glenn "had imported the material under cover of the Protestant mission he works for," Dupuy said, but could not give the name of the mission or say whether Glenn worked as a missionary or in some other capacity.

The material was seized, and Glenn was taken Saturday to the national penitentiary in the capital, Port-au-Prince, he said.

The U.S. Embassy said it was looking into the arrest but was unable to confirm it immediately. It was unclear where Glenn was from in the United States, or how long he had been in Haiti.

Philippe had support of some ex-soldiers
Philippe was a police chief in Haiti's second largest city, Cap-Haitien. He won some support among members of the police force, some of whom were soldiers in the army Aristide disbanded after the 1991 coup that shoved him from power shortly after his election victory.

Recently, the Haitian government has accused Philippe of arms smuggling and planning acts against the government.

On Wednesday, Haitian police found assault weapons, ammunitions, and plans to attack the National Palace and Aristide's suburban residence in the home of former Port-au-Prince mayoral candidate Judith Roy.

"The tie between Philippe and Roy is obvious," said Dupuy, declining to give details or furnish evidence.

Criticizing Haiti's main opposition alliance, Convergence, for failing the Haitian people and considering negotiations with Aristide, Philippe said Friday he hoped for another way out but that the time for negotiations was over.

"There are no leaders and that is the problem," he said. "Convergence has to understand that we are not going to negotiate any further." He is not a Convergence member.

Declining to say how he makes a living or what he does to spend his time in the Dominican Republic, Philippe said the international community needed to do more to push Aristide from power, but he said he would not support an armed invasion. International forces, including the U.S. military, helped restore Aristide to power in 1994.

Over the past six months a small "contra" band, called the San Manman ("Motherless") army, has terrorized the population in the Central Plateau of Haiti. Virtually unreported by the international press, this small band of heavily armed individuals, which calls itself the "armed wing of the opposition," has used various names to engage in summary executions, torture, sabotage, arson and kidnapping. Over the past year, they have executed twenty people including policemen, a judge, and representatives of the elected governing party in Haiti, Fanmi Lavalas. Their stated purpose is to topple the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and to execute those who favor the government.

As stated in a press conference on December 19, 2002, in Pernal, Haiti, the San Manman declared that "we will overthrow Aristide in a military manner... we will dismantle Aristide and all Lavalas members ... we are going to do it and we want Aristide to know that we are going to do it."

On November 28, 2002, a justice of the peace, Mr. Christophe Lozama, and five members of his family were brutally killed in Belladeres by this armed group. In February 2003, the group killed two members of Fanmi Lavalas from Petit Goave, Myrtil Fleurilus and Samuel Polo, the latter dying from burns after his house was set on fire. On February 16, 2003, the armed guerrillas ambushed a vehicle carrying two policemen near Belladeres, killing a Haitian SWAT Team agent Patrick Samedi. On May 6, 2003 the same group stole an ambulance, kidnapping medical personnel in the area, and then proceeded to execute two security guards at the Peligre hydroelectric plant. After executing the guards, they taped pictures of President Aristide to the feet of the deceased, and then set fire to the power station for the purpose of disabling the major source of hydroelectric power in the country.

On May 18, 2003, Salnave Louis, a member of Fanmi Lavalas and the local government administrative council was executed by men accused of being part of the armed opposition. On June 21, four individuals known to support Fanmi Lavalas were killed in Lascaobas by a group of heavily armed men claiming to be loyal to the political opposition. They attacked the police station in the city, threw live grenades at homes, and tortured some of the people they executed. Less than a week later, on the night of June 27, 2003, in a similar incident, four additional individuals were killed by armed men. As recently as last week, another individual was executed in Pernales by members of the San Manman army.

"This violence must cease," said Ira Kurzban, Counsel for the Government of Haiti in the United States. Some members of the international community in Haiti have focused exclusively on the arrest of one individual, however these same officials "have turned a blind-eye toward to the violence perpetrated by persons seeking to stage a coup against the democratically elected government of President Aristide," Mr. Kurzban said. The efforts to destabilize the government of Haiti are "unacceptable" and all forms of violence, including violence against the government and government supporters "should be denounced by the international community without hesitation."

The international community "must denounce also those who seek to provoke violence," Mr. Kurzban stated. The government has the responsibility to protect all citizens in the exercise of their rights to freedom of speech, but it does not mean that persons who have called for the termination of the elected government, including non-citizens, are free to go into neighbors in Haiti to provoke violence. "A knowing provocation to violence under the guise of free speech, is not protected under any country's laws, including the United States, and no one should expect governmental authorities in Haiti to tolerate such actions," Mr. Kurzban said.

"The only way forward," Mr. Kurzban said, "is through non-violence, peaceful elections, and democracy." "All parties should condemn violence and the provocation to violence irrespective of the source or political affiliation," concluded Mr. Kurzban.

(Source: Ira Kurzban, Counsel to the Government of Haiti)