The United States State Department’s Bureau for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) wants to appoint a director for its Police Advisory Group (PAG) in Haiti to work at the U.S. Embassy to get weapons to the government of Haiti through loopholes in the U.S.' own arms embargo.  The guns would be put in the hands of the Haitian National Police, an institution now condemned in human rights report after human rights report.

But even as the executive branch of the U.S. government prepares to pay someone upward of $70,000 a year to facilitate the flow of weapons to the coup government, true friends of Haiti in the legislative branch -- Representatives Barbara Lee and John Conyers of the Congressional Black Caucus -- are throwing up obstacles to this deadly aid.

Congresswoman Barbara Lee (Democrat of Oakland) successfully amended a foreign aid spending bill to forbid use of its funds to sell or transfer of arms for use by the Haitian National Police.

A statement released by Nathan Britton, communication director of Lee's office, said the amendment also requires a State Department report on the involvement of Haitian police in criminal activity.

"The people of Haiti remain targets of political violence, torture and in some cases murder, and too often the perpetrators of this violence are the Haitian National Police, armed with US weapons free of charge," said Lee. "This amendment is necessary in the effort to restore democracy. Haiti desperately needs humanitarian assistance, and sending weapons only exacerbates Haiti's struggle with violence and the criminal activity within the Haitian National Police Force."

Lee got the amendment passed by voice vote back on June 28.  In supporting the amendment Congressmember John Conyers (Democrat of Michigan, dean of the Congressional Black Caucus) said:

Even though the United States has an arms embargo against Haiti, U.S. law grants authority to the President of the United States to provide weapons to Haiti, without any Congressional input, as long as these arms are identified as "excess." Recently, it has come to the attention of Congress that last August, the President transferred over 4,000 arms and ammunition to the Government of Haiti. These arms included hundreds of .38 caliber, .45 caliber, and 9 mm guns as well as M-14 rifles and sub-machine guns.

The text of Lee's amendment is simply:

An amendment to prohibit funds made available in the Act from being used to transfer excess property of an agency of the United States Government to the Government of Haiti.

The House of Representatives approved the overall spending bill on Friday by a vote of 358-39.  It now awaits approval in the Senate before it would go to the White House to be signed into law.  It is not clear if the INL or other U.S. agencies in the Bush regime would be able to get around both the existing embargo and the prohibition in this bill and continue to give weapons to its Haitian partners in crime.