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Onetime Ally, a Suspect In Journalist's Death, Is Also Rival of Aristide

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti --(Washington Post Foreign Service) The rule prohibiting guns on the floor of the Haitian Senate has always seemed like a reasonable nod toward civility in a country that has known little in recent years. But on Jan. 31 a squad of at least a half-dozen gun-toting men appeared in the austere chamber escorting one of its members, a charismatic former military man named Dany Toussaint.

No one stepped forward to remind Toussaint of the no-guns rule. Nor did anyone suggest that the armed entourage might intimidate his fellow senators, who on that day were scheduled to decide whether Toussaint should stand trial for his allegedly central role in Haiti's most audacious political killing in a decade. For that to happen, the Senate would have to lift the immunity Toussaint enjoys as a lawmaker.

Instead, the Senate sent the matter back to the magistrate prosecuting the case with a request for more evidence tying Toussaint to the April 2000 slaying of Jean Dominique, arguably Haiti's most influential journalist at the time. The magistrate, however, had fled the country, claiming he had received death threats from Toussaint's men.

Yvon Neptune, the Senate president and, like Toussaint, a member of the ruling Family Lavalas party, has ordered an investigation into why gunmen were in the chamber Jan. 31. But he has already concluded that Toussaint is posing problems for his impoverished country and for its president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"In Family Lavalas, there is only one strongman, and that is President Aristide," Neptune said. "So anytime someone brings criticism to the party, they must be a problem."

This was not the role the United States had in mind for Toussaint when he was the U.S. choice to bring law and order to Haiti. Now the bon vivant, who rarely travels without an entourage, exemplifies how U.S. policies in this troubled Caribbean nation are complicated by some of the people selected to help carry them out.

Toussaint is among a long line of hardened men the United States has turned to during Haiti's losing struggle to create an equitable judicial system and a transparent democracy in the rough wake of a dictatorship that collapsed 16 years ago. Country doctor turned dictator Francois Duvalier ruled Haiti from 1957 until his death in 1971 and was followed by his 19-year-old son, Jean-Claude Duvalier. With U.S. prodding, and the country's troubles increasing, he fled Haiti in 1986.

Since then, the United States has turned to, among others, Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, a CIA operative who headed a brutal paramilitary squad in the early 1990s, and U.S.-trained former military men Jean-Jacques Nau and Guy Philippe, who have been implicated in recent coup attempts.

Like some of his predecessors, Toussaint no longer enjoys U.S. support and has been barred from entering the United States. But he is unlikely to disappear as an obstacle to U.S. policy goals, which center on preserving Haiti's tenuous stability. Toussaint's hero status, inexplicable riches and deep loyalties within the National Police he once led have won him a vast following, making him a threat to Aristide.

"Clearly, we were wrong about him in the beginning," said a U.S. official. "He's a nefarious character. We believe he is involved in political murders. We believe he's involved in drug trafficking. And we would find it unacceptable for him to hold any position in the government."

In September 1991, seven months after Aristide was sworn in as Haiti's first freely elected president, the leftist former priest was deposed by military coup. Toussaint is credited by mutual friends with saving Aristide's life by firing back at the attackers from inside the National Palace.

After the coup, Toussaint left with Aristide for the United States, where they spent three years in exile. Then, in 1994, the Clinton administration sent 20,000 soldiers to restore Aristide's presidency. Toussaint was picked to head the interim National Police force trained by the United States to replace the dreaded armed forces.

But Toussaint's relationships with the United States and with Aristide soured even as his popularity in Haiti grew. In the May 2000 legislative elections, Toussaint received more votes than any other candidate, and his political base in Haiti's West province, which includes this capital of 3 million people, gives him a prime launching pad for the 2005 presidential campaign. He has announced that he intends to run, and even his most staunch critics say he likely will win the election.

Unless, perhaps, Aristide turns against him. Acquaintances of the two men say their relationship is now based on mutual fear. "They both have a lot of missiles pointed at each other," said a U.S. official.

If Toussaint breaks with the president, Aristide would lose much of his ability to rally poor Haitians. A number of euphemistically named "popular organizations" that provide mass support for Aristide or rally against his opponents respond to Toussaint's orders -- and his money. Those include the mobs that burned opposition headquarters and opposition-owned houses after a Dec. 17 coup attempt.

Aristide, however, has leverage of his own. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has suspected Toussaint of growing rich by helping Haiti become a major gateway for Colombian cocaine headed to the United States. Toussaint is one of two senators "credibly linked by a number of U.S. government agencies to narcotics trafficking in Haiti," according to a Dec. 20 letter addressed to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from Sen. Mike DeWine (R-Ohio) and Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), who serve on the intelligence committees of their respective chambers.

The United States is blocking more than $500 million in badly needed international loans to Haiti, pending an agreement on reforms between Aristide and the coalition of opposition parties known as Democratic Convergence. Those talks are being complicated by Toussaint and the militant wing of Family Lavalas he represents, which contends Aristide is giving too much away to an opposition that has little popular support.

Toussaint, who on Wednesday submitted to questioning before a new judge on the Dominque case, has denied the drug-trafficking allegations. But his friends say Toussaint fears the president could try to solve his own problems with the United States by turning Toussaint over to U.S. authorities. Aristide also could make sure Toussaint stands trial for his alleged role in killing the popular Dominique, a crime the president is under pressure to solve.

Toussaint, who declined repeated interview requests, does not fit the conventional image of a senator. He does not maintain an office at the decrepit downtown Senate building, choosing instead to conduct business from Dany King's Police and Security Supply in the wealthy neighborhood of Petionville.

From the building's second-story showroom, Toussaint sells badges, handcuffs and anti-car-theft devices, among an array of paramilitary gadgetry. The first floor, however, is off-limits to the public. A man with a radio stands guard outside a large wooden door set into a windowless facade. The man offers to pass a message to the senator, but he will not say where Toussaint is or when he intends to arrive.

So Toussaint leaves his friends and enemies to tell his story. Gerard Jean-Juste, a priest who runs St. Claire's Church in the Delmas neighborhood, met Toussaint about 15 years ago in the United States. This was during Toussaint's first exile, when the army major had fled Duvalier's repressive military after refusing to carry out political killings. He stayed at Jean-Juste's Haitian Refugee Center in Miami for a few months.

Jean-Juste portrayed Toussaint as a kind, misunderstood hero who gets himself into trouble with his outsized ego. Toussaint, the priest said, donates generously to the Boy Scouts and a variety of churches. He is, Jean-Juste said, a peacemaker.

"He's good-humored, a good guy with a little too much pride," Jean-Juste said. "He likes talking about Dany and the coup d'etat. He's got a big mouth, but he really makes you like him."

The Americans working on Haiti after the collapse of the Duvalier dictatorship certainly fell for him. His associates say in a whisper that he worked for years with "the guys at Langley," referring to the CIA.

Toussaint's connection to the CIA remains unclear, and the U.S. Embassy here declined to discuss the specifics of his relationship with the U.S. government. Toussaint has taken to blaming his current problems with the United States on a CIA-orchestrated vendetta. In 1997 he was held and questioned by U.S. authorities about his alleged involvement in the 1995 murder of an Aristide opponent, Mireille Durocher Bertin.

After receiving FBI training that included human rights courses, Toussaint returned with Aristide to head the 5,000-member interim National Police in 1994. But Toussaint quickly gained a reputation for using the police as an enforcement arm of Lavalas. When the "interim" force gave way to the National Police at the end of 1995, U.S. officials pressured the new president, Rene Preval, to exclude Toussaint. Toussaint became security chief for Lavalas while maintaining ties to his handpicked leaders of the National Police.

Now, though, a split has emerged in Lavalas over Toussaint's rising clout. One Lavalas member described it as a struggle between "the honest part of the party and those guided by self-interest," warning that if the wrong side wins, Haiti could become a narco-state.

"Right now the United States should be trying to help the cleaner part of this party," the Lavalas member said. "Because if Dany runs for president, he is going to be very hard to beat."