Guest Post: 20 years ago today: Operation Uphold Democracy, Haiti
A guest post from Martinjmpr;
The “big” wars get all the press. Books, movies, television programs and other elements of pop culture devote their attention to the major military operations of the day. The mundane, minor, brush-fire conflicts are barely mentioned at the time and quickly forgotten afterwards.
It was 20 years ago today that the US intervention in Haiti officially began. The mission was to restore the democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean Bertrand Aristide, to the seat of power he’d been kicked out of a couple of years before in a military coup (a secondary justification was to stem the flow of refugees fleeing from Haiti to American shores.)
The original plan was a Panama/Grenada-style air-and sea-borne military invasion, with paratroopers from the 82nd descending on the capital city of Port-au-Prince to seize the airfield, heliborne SOF units to capture key facilities deep inside the country, and a follow-on force of Marines to arrive by sea at the country’s two main ports, Port-au-Prince in the West and Cap Haitien in the North. It would have been swift, brutal and decisive.
But that’s not the way it went down. Just a day before the operation was set to begin, a team of three high ranking US representatives – former President Jimmy Carter, former senator Sam Nunn, and retired General Colin Powell, flew to Haiti to urge the dictator, General Cedras, to step down and go into exile. The carrier battle group was anchored in the Carribbean off the Haitian coast, and the paratroopers were literally in the air on their way to the drop zone, when the word came that an agreement had been reached, and the “forced entry” operation turned into a “soft invasion.”
US forces occupied most of the country, with the bulk of US forces in the areas of the two biggest cities, Port au Prince and Cap Haitien. The remainder of the country was “occupied” by SOF units, primarily the 3rd Special Forces Group (ABN) out of Fort Bragg, under the command of Col. Boyatt.
There was one US KIA, SFC Greg Cardott, A/3/3rd SFG who was shot and killed in Gonaives on 12 JAN 1995 by a disgruntled former member of the Haitian Armed Forces (FAD’H) The shooter was immediately shot and killed by Cardott’s partner.
OUD “Officially” ended in mid-1995 when the UN took over as UNMIH. UNMIH stayed there until 1996.
On a purely personal note, OUD will always loom large in my conscience because it was my first “real” operation (that is, the first time I was given ammunition without having to sign for it!) I was assigned to Military Intelligence Detachment of the 3rd battalion, 3rd SFG, and detached to the the CJSOTF(Combined/Joint Special Operations Task Force) at Guantanamo Bay. I remember vividly, sitting at a picnic table overlooking the runway on the Leeward side of Gitmo, loading ammo into my magazines as the C-130s containing the Rangers landed one by one, and then just sat on the runway with their engines running, just waiting for the orders to take off. I deployed to Port au Prince on about the 25th or 26th of September, and a few weeks later when the 3rd Battalion was “stood up” in Haiti, I spent the rest of my time at FOB 33 (3/3 SFG) in Gonaives. I was there until February of 1995.
DoD never considered Haiti to be a “war.” Except for those of us who were there, Haiti has been largely forgotten by most Americans, and probably by most Haitians as well. Sadly, Haiti remains the same corrupt, broken country as it was when we got there, and OUD is just a minor footnote in American military history, a messy little operation in a hopeless little country.
Category: Historical
Even today, I have mixed feelings about that operation. While it stabilized Haiti (which was indeed in our best interests) in the short term, long-term it did little but replace one thug with another (Aristide IMO was no better than the Duvaliers and their ilk – his politics were merely different).
In the long run, it made little or no difference. Haiti is still a basket case – economically and socially. It’s IMO still one of the worst of the Third World’s cesspits, and maybe one economic crisis or major hurricane away from collapsing into utter chaos as a failed state.
Personally, I’m not sure a naval blockade to stop any mass migration wouldn’t have been the better answer in terms of protecting US interests. But since Aristide’s politics were attractive to the US Administration in charge at the time, we didn’t select that option.
I still don’t know if it was worth it or not. I don’t think we ever really will.
Went down to Haiti in I believe February 2004 as part of the Regimental HQ of the 8th Marines. Flew into Port au Prince and set up our COC at the airport. After about a week at the airport, we moved our operation to the “Aristide Medical University”. Our mission was to restore order after President Aristide had fled due to several armed groups moving on the capital. My Regimental Commander, Colonel Gurganus met with the commander of the largest rebel group in a 5 star hotel in the hills above the capital. The meeting did not last long. He told this rebel leader that he had 24 hours to get his people out of the capital or the Marine Corps would force them out and that if one of our Marines was injured due to the actions of any rebel group, Colonel Gurganus would hold him personally responsible. The rebels were gone in the allotted time.
We had the Canadians, the French and some troops from a couple of South American countries in Haiti with us. The Marine Corps was responsible for keeping the peace in Port au Prince. Our ground combat element was comprised of 3rd Battalion, 8th Marines (rein). Other than some gang activity, we faced no strong resistance. Aristide was tight with several criminal gangs and they were upset that he had been forced out of the country, as I guess it cut into their profit margin.
We were down there until June time frame of 2004 and then a U.N. force came and took over. Of all of the shit holes I have been sent to, Haiti was the shitholiest. And that includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Just large scale squalor.
The Haitian people have been screwed over since that country was founded. Either dictators or just outright thieves. Aristide, for all of his press clippings as a priest and man of the people was no different. His people lived in their own filth while a select few profited. Just a sad, hopeless place.
Can confirm squalor. Patrolled en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cite_Soleil daily on foot.
Task force 2/505 PIR we almost got our combat jump in.
I remember. My dad was on a frigate that was supporting this Operation. That winter, they prepped for decommissioning and sale to Turkey
Martinjmpr…Thank you for the article. Also, thank you for serving as well as all those who took part in this operation. By the way, I did remember this today, though it was long after my military tours.
Seating at green ramp thinking that this was going to be the easiest combat jump ever. Man was I disappointed when it was cancelled. Air landed a couple of days later and spent just 45 day there. Did more humanitarian assistance than anything else. Helped a kid get a softball sized polyp removed from his face. We did disarm a large fully armed police company though, lied to them and told them Spectre was overhead and a company of Rangers were on the way, SF guys got to be creative some times. Not a bad deployment but the follow on to Thailand was better.
Haiti is wild. Although I wasn’t there in 1995 I was there nearly a decade later in 2004. It sounds exactly like the same place. Absolutely lawless when we arrived and it was chaos. Every single day there was some new crazy going on. I felt I was in far more danger there than I did ever in Iraq.
Got a combat action ribbon and humanitarian service medal from that deployment. Never going to forgot that hell hole. So many great stories from that deployment from finding Haitian police hiding in the closet when the Prime Minister’s residence took fire to some lance coolies acquiring air force fuel and being chased for it.
0311: Wild, yes, and also squalid. In Gonaives they would literally pile garbage in the center of the street. It was like the “islands” you see in the middle of many urban streets but instead of being made of concrete, it was made of garbage. The smell was undescribable and also unforgettable.
The sad thing is, Haiti has the same natural resources as the likes of Jamaica, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. There’s nothing those places have that Haiti doesn’t have just as much of. There was even a decrepit old Club Med resort on the Gulf of Gonave, just South of St. Marc. GORGEOUS white sand beaches and multicolored coral, with warm, tropical waters.
The only thing Haiti lacks is a stable government, and without that, it will always be a hellhole.
Every “dorm room anarchist” who thinks we’d be better off without a government should be dropped, naked, into the middle of Haiti. See how much fun it is to be in a country with no functioning government.