Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
Leopard Corps were disbanded after the 1989 conflict within
the army.
The FAd'H controlled the Port-au-Prince police and the
prison system. The capital's police force of about 1,000 illtrained
members was in effect a low-level constabulary under
military command. The armed forces administered the capital
city's firefighters and the country's customs, immigration, and
narcotics-control programs.
Haiti's security services consisted of about 8,000 military and
police when military rule was ended in 1994. The FAd'H itself
had a strength of about 6,200. Most officers began their careers
at the Military Academy at Freres (near Petionville) . After a
three-year course in a class of about sixty students, academy
graduates became career officers with the opportunity of rising
to the most senior FAd'H positions. In the final years of the
regime, the academy program degenerated. The training was
only nominal, and officers were selected and promoted not on
the basis of their records and capabilities but on family ties and
political orientation. Graduates of the NCO school and training
camp at Lamentin (near Carrefour) outside Port-au-Prince
served in mainstream army units or were assigned to rural
police duties, but the NCO school, too, was not fully operational
in the last years of the military government. Basic training
was conducted at the unit level. Although Article 268 of the
1987 constitution required all men to serve in the military
when they reached their eighteenth birthday, enlistment was in
reality voluntary. Women were limited to participating in the
medical corps.
Prior to demobilization of all the armed forces—army, navy,
and air force—the principal small arm for most of the army was
the Garand Ml rifle of World War II vintage. Some German G3
and American Ml 6 rifles were distributed to elite units, as were
Israeli Uzi submachine guns. The Presidential Guard had a few
armored vehicles and artillery pieces at its disposal. As
reported by The Military Balance, 1995-96, these consisted of V-
150 Commando and M2 armored personnel carriers and nine
75mm and 105mm towed howitzers. The army also had a small
inventory of 60mm and 81mm mortars, 37mm and 57mm antitank
guns, 20mm and 40mm antiaircraft guns, and some 57mm
and 106mm rocket launchers.
The Haitian navy was formed in 1860 and by the turn of the
century was theoretically the largest naval force in the Caribbean,
with two cruisers and six gunboats, manned largely by
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