This news struck me as I recall when investigative journalist Allan Nairn shared some recent history with the audience of Democracy Now! about how the Clinton administration continued George H. W. Bush’s policies and backed a CIA effort that supported the military junta there (see some of his reporting from then). These were thugs and rapists (those were Clinton’s own accurate labels for them) which Clinton ironically now takes some credit for opposing — but only after years of paying them, and perhaps with much more effort than was necessary, if he hadn’t supported them to begin with.

Emmanuel “Toto” Constant, the founder of a paramilitary group that came be known as FRAPH, and whose activities were supported by Bush and Clinton administration officials, is now in jail in the US. He’s spent the better part of the last decade living in New York City, where the US once tried to deport him on immigration charges — except to let off the hook by Clinton while he was still president. Later, when Haiti requested his extradition, the US, under George W. Bush, refused to comply. Constant has threatened to expose his CIA connections. He’s in jail not for human rights violations, but for being recently convicted in a fraud scheme.

Noam Chomsky recounted some of the same history at the same time, during the 2004 coup, and drew a comparison between the history of US involvement in Haiti with the US occupation of Iraq that was taking just taking hold then.

This is history Bill Clinton is entwined with, of which I’ve seen no refutation that extracts him. It should put into question the credibility of putting him in this position, however you weigh his current efforts of doing good — efforts which are now politically convenient. Their efficacy and their function, latent or otherwise, to whitewash this past need to be considered.

Updated: Jeremy Scahill has compiled his own sense of this history and accounts of first-hand reactions from journalists and activists working in Haiti during the Clinton era.