Guy Philippe

Guy Philippe (born 29 February 1968) is a Haitian politician. He led the 2004 Haitian coup d'état that ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide and he was a presidential candidate in the Haitian general election, 2006. He is currently on trial in the United States for allegedly participating in the illegal drug trade in Haiti.

Philippe was born in Pestel, in the province of Grand'Anse. He obtained his primary and secondary education at Saint-Louis de Gonzague. Human Rights watch alleges that in his late teens he was a death squad leader during the rebellion against Baby Doc Duvalier and in the turmoil which followed.

According to Philippe, he "has a law degree from Ecuador and studied medicine in Mexico for a year." In 1992, he received a scholarship from the Haitian Armed Forces (FAd'H) to Ecuador's police academy (La Escuela Superior de Policía "Gral. Alberto Enríquez Gallo"), where he graduated in 1995. When he returned to Haiti, however, the FAd'H had been dismantled, so he was assigned to the newly created police force, which is why he was never formally part of the Haitian army.

Phillipe accepted a commission as a commander in the Haitian National Police, and then became the police chief of the Port-au-Prince suburb of Delmas from 1997 to 1999. International monitors later "learned that dozens of suspected gang members were summarily executed, mainly by police under the command of Inspector Berthony Bazile, Philippe's deputy." In 1999 he was made police chief of Cap-Haïtien.

On 15 January 2000, Guy Philippe and his wife had a daughter named Aïsha. Following October 2000 accusations of participation in a coup plot and his subsequent removal from his post as police chief of Cap-Haïtien, Philippe fled to the Dominican Republic. While there he recruited ex-military and others forming a paramilitary organization, which received training from the U.S. Government. The Haitian government accused Philippe of masterminding a deadly attack on the Police Academy in July 2001 and of an attempted coup in December 2001. In July 2003, witnesses place him, together with Voltaire Jean-Batiste, leading a death squad operating in eastern Haiti just across the Dominican border.

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