A 1992 memo by a top CIA analyst praised Haiti's military strongman Gen. Raoul Cedras as "a conscientious military leader" and claimed there was no evidence of military abuses against civilians, the Miami Herald reported Saturday.
The newspaper said it had obtained a secret CIA memo written by the agency's top Latin America analyst, Brian Latell, after a five-day visit to Haiti in July 1992.Latell's memo said he found "no evidence of oppressive rule" and that "there is no systematic or frequent lethal violence aimed at civilians," the Herald said.
The memo, as reported by the Herald, clashed with accounts by human rights monitors of widespread abuses in Haiti and with the U.S. State Department's own assessment of army repression at the time.