Stanley Lucas

Stanley Lucas is Director for Latin America and the Caribbean for the Washington Democracy Project. He previously served as the U.S. International Republican Institute's (IRI's) Haiti program officer, and lists his international experience as including work on Afghanistan, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America. He also runs a blog called "Haiti Solutions."

Background
Lucas was described by Mother Jones magazine as "the scion of a powerful Haitian family with long-standing animosity toward [former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand] Aristide -- Amnesty International says some family members participated in a 1987 peasant massacre."

The New York Times described Lucas as "an avowed Aristide opponent from the Haitian elite, [who] counseled the opposition to stand firm, and not work with Mr. Aristide, as a way to cripple his government and drive him from power."

Alleged involvement in second Aristide coup
Journalist Max Blumenthal said of Lucas: "IRI's program in Haiti has been probably its most bellicose thanks to Stanley Lucas. ... He was schooled in Haiti's finest schools with members of the mulatto elite. At the same time, he comes from a wealthy land owning family close to the Duvalier regime, which ruled Haiti with an iron fist for decades. His family is close to the military. Two of Stanley Lucas's cousins massacred -- organized a massacre of 250 peasants, in 1987, who were protesting for land reform after the Duvalier regime crumbled. ... It was a terrible massacre documented by Amnesty International and described to me by someone who witnessed it firsthand. ... He is a judo master who allegedly trained the military in counter insurgency tactics after the Duvalier regime collapsed. He was hired [by IRI] in 1992. ... When I asked IRI's communications director why he was hired, he refused to tell me why, or what his duties consisted of between 1992 and 1998. A lot of people I spoke to suspect that Stanley Lucas is a CIA asset, including former ambassador -- former U.S. Ambassador in the region."

Blumenthal said that a source of his "who lived with Lucas, working with Lucas, in Haiti, told me he saw documents indicating that while Lucas was working for IRI, he was being paid by Michelle Francois, who was a notorious FRAPH [paramilitary] leader. ... [Lucas] lobbied for the opposition to Aristide and managed to tie quite a bit of funding to them and introduced a number of Aristide's most virulent opponents to powerful Republicans in Washington. When IRI's campaign to destabilize Haiti began in earnest in 1998 with a $2 million grant in mostly taxpayer money from the U.S. Agency for International Development, Lucas hosted some of Aristide's most virulent opponents in political training sessions. What he did was he merged all of these disparate groups into one big party called the Democratic Convergence."

Blumenthal added, "At the time, the U.S. Ambassador, who was named Brian Dean Curran, a Clinton appointee, who was a highly respected career diplomat, uncovered evidence that Stanley Lucas was the one encouraging the Democratic Convergence to reject the compromises and to stay out of the democratic process. When he presented this evidence to the U.S. Agency for International Development, and he asked them to block Stanley Lucas from the program, Bush's Assistant Secretary for the Western Hemisphere, Roger Noriega, apparently stepped in, and ... Lucas was barred for four months, but after four months, he was back. ... When Lucas returned to the program, he retaliated against Ambassador Curran. What he did was he spread salacious rumors in Port-au-Prince ... and in Washington about Curran's personal life. ... Lucas threatened two embassy officials and told them they would be fired once the real -- 'real' U.S. policy was implemented."

IRI response to coup charges
In response to a January 2006 article in the New York Times alleging that IRI tried "to undermine the reconciliation process after disputed 2000 Senate elections threw Haiti into a violent political crisis," IRI president Lorne Craner responded that the article was "based on accusations by former U.S. Ambassador Brian Dean Curran," along with "former associates of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and an accused death squad leader. All are dubious sources, and all have ample motivation to criticize IRI."

Craner's response also stated: "IRI did not undermine U.S. policy in Haiti. Nor, as a U.S. Agency for International Development Inspector General's report showed, did we consort with rebels in President Aristide's overthrow.  As Colin Powell has stated, Aristide was 'a man who was democratically elected, but did not democratically govern, or govern well.'  And he has to bear a large burden, if not the major burden, for what has happened."

SourceWatch resources

 * Haiti
 * International Republican Institute
 * Lorne Craner
 * Roger Noriega
 * U.S. Agency for International Development

Articles

 * Max Blumenthal, "The other regime change: Did the Bush administration allow a network of right-wing Republicans to foment a violent coup in Haiti?," Salon.com, July 16, 2004.
 * Joshua Kurlantzick, "The Coup Connection: How an organization financed by the U.S. government has been promoting the overthrow of elected leaders abroad," Mother Jones, November/December 2004.
 * Walt Bogdanich and Jenny Nordberg, "Mixed U.S. Signals Helped Tilt Haiti Toward Chaos," New York Times, January 29, 2006.