1 Septembre, 2004

September 1 2004

1 Septamn, 2004
Vol. 22 No. 25


Two Delegations to Visit Haiti’s Political Prisoners and Coup Victims

Next weekend, high level delegations from the U.S. will visit Haiti to look into the circumstances and conditions of detention of political prisoners, including constitutional Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, constitutional Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert and singer activist Annette “So Anne” Auguste.

Ramsey Clark will lead a delegation of the Haiti Commission of Inquiry, a New York-based group which sent emissaries to the Central African Republic and the Dominican Republic last March to investigate the coup.

The Haiti Commission delegation will also include former U.S. Army Capt. Lawrence Rockwood. He was court-martialed in 1995 for defying his commanders and unilaterally acting to protect the lives of prisoners in Haiti’s National Penitentiary a decade ago.

The New England Coalition for Human Rights in Haiti, based in Boston, will also be sending delegates to look into human rights abuses under the de facto government of Gérard Latortue.

The two delegations, composed of both North Americans and Haitians, will together visit the National Penitentiary and the Pétionville jail, among other facilities. They will also meet with victims of repression and the friends and relatives of those who have disappeared or been killed since Feb. 29.

The two delegations will hold a press conference next Monday, Sep. 6, at the Plaza Hotel in Port-au-Prince.


Report of the Haiti Accompaniment Project

 by Laura Flynn, Robert Roth and Leslie Fleming
(The second of three installments)

We continue this week to present the Haiti Accompaniment Project’s report from their June 29 to July 9 delegation. Last week’s installment reviewed the political situation surrounding the Feb. 29th coup and its aftermath and the repression that followed.

Economic Attacks
We observed or heard reports of a number of public actions by the current Haitian authorities that are clear evidence of an economic campaign against the poor.

While we were in Haiti the new, unelected Mayor of Delmas was attempting to forcibly remove from the main boulevard of Delmas hundreds of street vendors who make their living selling goods on the street.

Peasant farmers in the Artibonite Valley reported that large land owners accompanied by armed paramilitaries have seized land that was given to peasant families as a part of the Land Reform projects carried out by the Préval and Aristide administrations (300 hectares had been distributed to 6000 families). These actions came immediately after de facto Prime Minister Gerard Latortue criticized the Lavalas land reform program in Jacmel.

The government has dropped subsidies on fertilizer, critical to the rice industry in the Artibonite. Peasant farmers are reporting price gouging by wealthy importers. Since the coup, the price of a bag of fertilizer has gone from 290 gourdes to 650 gourdes.

Residents of Village 2004, a public housing project, have been evicted from their homes. The most egregious example is in a new four-story apartment complex in Village 2004. Housing in this complex was for state workers who had signed and begun to pay off 20-year mortgages with the state-owned bank. The UN seized this complex to house its personnel, and the residents were put out on the street, whether or not they had title to their homes.

There has been a crackdown on labor unions and peasant associations. We met with peasant organizers who told us of cooperatives being ransacked, with tools and equipment stolen. One organizer told us of repeated death threats and an assassination plot against him in late May. We met with a labor union organizer who told us of a steadily mounting anti-union campaign directed at the assembly sector. He has received many reports from workers who say that factory owners are not respecting the minimum wage, which was raised last year by the Aristide government. In addition, three hundred workers have been fired from a Grupo M factory in the free trade zone along the Dominican border.

On July 13th, shortly after we left Haiti, the Latortue government announced that it would be offering a tax holiday of up to three years to large businesses who suffered losses between December 2003 and March 2004. No state support was offered to the thousands of poor people who have lost their homes or livelihoods due to the coup d’etat.

We met with educators who told us that the government had cancelled subsidies for school children and schoolbooks and had ended funding for literacy programs. They expressed concern that many more families would be unable to send their students to school when the new term opens in the fall. There are also many people who report that their children have been forced out of school because of family affiliation with Lavalas.

Political Organizing
Demonstrations/Protest
In spite of the repressive conditions, political organizing among the poor continues in Haiti. Activists have attempted to carve out a space – however fragile – to continue their political protests and community work.

Demonstrations calling for the return of President Aristide continue. While we were in Haiti, there was a “sit-in” of approximately 100 activists in front of the US Embassy organized by Fanmi Lavalas. Shortly after we left Haiti, thousands of people marched from the neighborhood of Belair in Port-au-Prince to celebrate President Aristide’s 51st birthday and to call for his return. Lavalas organizers are well aware that a previous demonstration in May was met by police fire, causing some deaths. Still they are determined to maintain an open organizing presence for Lavalas. They have announced plans to continue this sit-ins on a regular basis in front of the Embassy.

The human rights organization, Foundation 30 September, has resumed its weekly vigil in front of the National Palace. Inspired by Argentina’s Madres de Plaza de Mayo, the organization held sit-ins every Wednesday from fall 1996 until this February, to insist on justice for the victims of the 1991-1994 dictatorship. They have changed their focus to insist on the restoration of democracy, as they believe the current government has no intention of pursuing justice. Weekly demonstrations also continue to protest the imprisonment of Lavalas activist and singer Annette Auguste. (...)

Fanmi Lavalas
Fanmi Lavalas has experienced the brunt of repression since the coup. Many leaders have left the country or are in internal exile. Many Lavalas members and supporters have had their homes burned, have lost jobs, and have been separated from their families. Activists from around the country face continual threats from police, the former military, and political opponents. The Justice Ministry has ordered personal and organizational bank accounts to be frozen, rumors continually circulate about impending trials for corruption, and many former officials have been barred from leaving the country, in violation of the constitution. The National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), which has positioned itself among international media as the voice of human rights in Haiti, has refused to condemn this widespread repression against Lavalas. (...)

Cap-Haitian/Milot
Our group went to Cap-Haitian where we met with the Chilean military officers in charge of the UN military command and interviewed the Mayor of Milot, Moise Jean-Charles, and other victims of repression in the North.

In the period immediately preceding the coup, many human rights violations were committed, including the following:

  • Rebel forces under the command of Guy Philippe murdered three police officers in Cap-Haitian on February 22. They also destroyed the airport and the prison, and burned the homes of many members of the local government.

  • Throughout late February and early March there were nightly killings and home burnings. We received reports of some Lavalas supporters being burned alive in St. Marc.

  • On February 22, there was large-scale violence in Milot. The mayor’s car was burned and he received death threats.

    No one has been prosecuted for any of these crimes. Guy Philippe and his men continue to function unimpeded out of a compound in Cap-Haitian. It is widely believed that he is in direct touch with UN military commanders and is consulted about arrests and other police matters.

    Since the coup, the human rights situation in the North has remained grim. Chefs de Section (rural police officials who had been removed from positions of authority under the Aristide government) are now back in Milot and many other rural areas. This has created fear among peasants who remember the arbitrary justice these officials meted out in the past. In addition, the climate of repression in the North has been heightened by the French-UN invasion of Mayor Moise’s house on June 14th.

    According to Mayor Moise, his home was ransacked and his wife was arrested while his two young children watched. This invasion took place without a warrant. Recently, the Justice of the Peace in Cap-Haitian gave Mr. Moise’s lawyer an affidavit stating that there was no outstanding warrant for his arrest. But there has been no apology or restitution for the damage done in the home invasion.

    We met with the Chilean UN Military Command on Monday, July 5th. The meeting began politely, but the Chilean command became confrontational when we raised issues about the attack on Mayor Moise’s home. A Chilean soldier appeared with a camera and took our pictures. At one point, the commander demanded to know why we were taking notes.

    The commanding officer (Carrasco) stated that he had no knowledge of the incident at Mr. Moise’s home, since he had just recently arrived in Cap-Haitien. He emphasized that the role of the United Nations Military Command was to support the Haitian police. Another officer (Hagedorn) had been in Cap-Haitien for a longer period of time. He acknowledged that Chilean troops did participate in the operation against Mr. Moise. He denied, however, that Mr. Moise’s wife had been detained or that the home was ransacked. He dismissed eyewitness accounts of the attack and stated that this was not a “big issue” and that, at most, a few dishes had been inadvertently broken during the assault. He said that a UN investigation had determined that nothing illegal had occurred during the operation. He could not explain why Mr. Moise’s house had been targeted.