(The first of two installments)

A new human rights report on Haiti by a Philadephia-based immigration lawyer has spurred grassroots activists to action, grabbed the attention of U.S. and Canadian lawmakers, and created a buzz in conferences and Internet chat rooms.

Simply titled "Haiti: Human Rights Investigation, November 11-21, 2004," the report was researched and written by Thomas M. Griffin, a former U.S. federal law enforcement officer, and released by the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami Law School.

The 61-page report, which includes dozens of grisly photographs, documents the horrific human rights situation in Haiti today, exposing pro-coup Haitian human rights groups for their silence or support of the de facto regime.

Over the course of 10 days, Griffin and his team met with businessmen, grassroots leaders, gang members, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, human rights groups and police and officials from the UN and the Haitian and U.S. governments. They visited poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons, hospitals and the state morgue.

This week and next, we present large extracts from the report which can be downloaded in its entirety at http://www.law.miami.edu/cshr/CSHR_Report_02082005_v2.pdf.

Executive Summary: After ten months under an interim government backed by the United States, Canada, and France and buttressed by a United Nations force, Haiti's people churn inside a hurricane of violence. Gunfire crackles, once bustling streets are abandoned to cadavers, and whole neighborhoods are cut off from the outside world. Nightmarish fear now accompanies Haiti's poorest in their struggle to survive in destitution. Gangs, police, irregular soldiers, and even UN peacekeepers bring fear. There has been no investment in dialogue to end the violence.

Haiti's security and justice institutions fuel the cycle of violence. Summary executions are a police tactic, and even well-meaning officers treat poor neighborhoods seeking a democratic voice as enemy territory where they must kill or be killed. Haiti's brutal and disbanded army has returned to join the fray. Suspected dissidents fill the prisons, their Constitutional rights ignored. As voices for non-violent change are silenced by arrest, assassination, or fear, violent defense becomes a credible option. Mounting evidence suggests that members of Haiti's elite, including political powerbroker Andy Apaid, pay gangs to kill Lavalas supporters and finance the illegal army.

UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most Haitians, are overwhelmed by the firestorm. Unable to communicate with the police, they resort to heavy-handed incursions into the poorest neighborhoods that force intermittent peace at the expense of innocent residents.

The injured prefer to die at home untreated rather than risk arrest at the hospital. Those who do reach the hospital soak in puddles of their own blood, ignored by doctors. Not even death ends the tragedy: bodies pile in the morgue, quickly devoured out of recognition by maggots.

There is little hope for an election to end the crisis, as the Electoral Council's mandate is crippled by corruption and in-fighting.

U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods, not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of the elected president. Their support for the interim government is not surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked for U.S. government projects that undermined their elected predecessors. (...)

Cité Soleil, home to over 250,000 people, is cut off from the outside world by roadblocks and shooting galleries. Fleeing residents risk violent death or arrest. Since the demonstration in downtown Port-au-Prince on September 30, 2004, where police shot at unarmed participants, even the police do not enter the area to perform the anti-gang operations that they routinely conduct in other poor neighborhoods. (...)

Teachers and medical professionals either will not or cannot enter Cité Soleil.

Since September 30, 2004, gang violence overwhelms the notorious hunger, disease, abandonment and despair of Cité Soleil. A well-armed, well-funded group in the Boston neighborhood of the Cité continually attacks the people in all its other neighborhoods. Witnesses repeatedly explained this siege as an effort to hold hostage and stifle the political voice of the poor, and to wipe out the Lavalas movement.

Numerous witnesses stated the Boston gang leader, Thomas Robinson, alias "Labanyè," receives financial, firearms, and political support from wealthy businessman and politico, Andy Apaid and businessman Reginald Boulos. Cité Soleil witnesses and police officers reported that Apaid's support of Labanyè keeps the police from arresting him.

Apaid, the leader of the Group of 184, a business-backed organization established to oppose President Aristide, told investigators that he has directed the Haitian Police not to arrest Labanyè but to "work with him." (...)

Official government protection of Labanyè appears evident in the one "wanted poster" that appears in every Port-au-Prince police station. It contains the names and photos of 30 suspected gang leaders, but not Labanyè, perhaps the best known of all local gangsters. Police confirmed that all those pictured are believed to be Lavalas supporters. Numerous police officers also confirmed that Labanyè is killing for Apaid (...), and that they remain under orders not to arrest him.

Cité Soleil residents, police officers and Cité Soleil leaders who refused Andy Apaid's overtures to switch loyalties, stated that Apaid "bought" Labanyè with $30,000 U.S. dollars. They claim that the agreement turned Labanyè away from his support for Lavalas, and that Apaid's mission for Labanyè is to destroy the Lavalas movement in Cité Soleil through violence. (Apaid admits to having influence over Labanyè, and to asking the police to protect him. Apaid denies that he is involved in violence.)

Efforts to access Labanyè failed. Multiple sources stated, however, that Labanyè has a large United States flag draped in front of his headquarters under which he forces victims to kneel and beg for their lives before killing them.

Eyewitnesses, including two men on the poster, "Amaral" and Emmanuel Wilmer alias "Dred Wilme," stated that in July 2003, Andy Apaid invited several Lavalas street leaders in Cité Soleil (Amaral, Dred Wilme, Tupac, Billy, and Labanyè) to a meeting. Also in attendance were Leon Charles (Chief of Police since the change in government), and a representative of the Italian Consulate. Apaid asked the young men to become the violent arm of his movement to undermine the elected government, and to crush the democracy movement in Cité Soleil. Only Labanyè agreed. Tupac has since been killed and Billy is in jail (...). Amaral and Dred Wilme (...) are unable to leave Cité Soleil. Their mantra is a vow to bring Aristide back to the poor, or die trying. (...)

Bel Air, La Saline, Lower Delmas, Martissant And Fort National: These extremely poor sections of Port-au-Prince, where several hundred thousand people live, differ from Cité Soleil in two significant ways: (I) they are not cut off from other neighborhoods, and (ii) the police routinely enter to conduct operations which are often murderous attacks, often with firepower support from the UN Civil Police and Peacekeeping forces. Entry to these areas is restricted, however, by residents suspicious of outsiders, who are suspected of spying for the police or the "blan" ("foreigners") -- the name used to describe the UN forces (officially called the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti "MINUSTAH"). Likewise, hardly any young men (from pre-adolescent youngsters to men in their thirties) leave the neighborhood for fear of being arrested as a chimère, the derogatory label given to them by the pro-government media.

On an almost daily basis, the Haitian National Police ("HNP"), in various units and dressed in a wide variety of uniforms, often masked, select and attack a neighborhood in operations reported as efforts to arrest armed gang members, with UN soldiers backing them up.

Observations and interviews in Bel Air revealed that there are dead bodies in the street almost daily, including innocent bystanders, women and children. (...) The violent repression by police and former soldiers (...) with the UN forces visibly acting as support for, rather than a check on the official violence, has generated desperate fear in a community that is quickly losing its young men to violent death or arbitrary arrest. In a circle of violence, police attacks frustrate non-violent demonstrations and stifle articulate peaceful leaders. In turn, the courageous exercise of constitutional rights becomes subordinated to the fearlessness of gunmen in gangs. Anyone suspected of colluding with the police risks a violent interrogation and death.

Political Posture of the Poorest Neighborhoods: On November 16, 2004, the investigators were escorted through a labyrinth of shacks and dark, narrow alleyways, passing through a flurry of children playing, women doing chores, and armed young men, to meet with a political leader in Bel Air who uses the name Samba Boukman. He carried several folders of handwritten notes, detailing the dates and times of police attacks, and the names, dates of birth, and family members of those who have been killed during the HNP operations from September to the present. Boukman's list showed approximately one hundred dead and many others disappeared. He also had a record of the license plates of police vehicles used for the operations. During the interview, a young man displayed an unexploded hand grenade that the former soldiers, now reuniting, had thrown at a house in a recent operation. Like the leaders in Cité Soleil, Samba Boukman stated that all that the people want is to freely gather and peacefully exercise their right to demonstrate for the return of President Aristide and constitutional government. He stated that the police shattered this possibility when they shot at unarmed demonstrators in downtown Port-au-Prince on September 30, 2004. He stated that police, and often former soldiers, have continued to reinforce the message of repression by committing open-air massacres at mid-day. (...)

The Richest Neighborhood: The investigators observed conditions and conducted interviews in the Pétionville suburb, the richest neighborhood in the Port-au-Prince area. Pétionville is home to many of Haiti's wealthy, its business elite, foreign ex-patriots, international reporters on assignment, and temporary foreign workers (...). High-end shopping, restaurants, upscale hotels, and French- or English-speaking Haitians can also be found here. (...)

Residents and authorities stated that they have not been victimized by violence and attribute most of that to the protection afforded by members of the officially disbanded Haitian Army. Former soldiers have established a base in Pétionville and they patrol the town's perimeter each night, checking incoming vehicles. (...)

There is an obvious tension between the HNP, who have a large station and jail in Pétionville's center, and the soldiers. The HNP are visibly nervous, while the soldiers swagger with large firearms, marching and drilling, speeding through and out of Pétionville on operations in the day, and patrolling nightly. Despite some sense of insecurity and fear of the poor, driven more by the media than by actual events in Pétionville, it seems that most of Pétionville is at ease. Residents not only have protection from the HNP, but a heavily armed regiment ready to serve the neighborhood that has been feeding and housing them.

The Unlawful Return of the Haitian Army: In Pétionville, investigators confirmed the repeated, highly consistent reports from neighborhoods under siege that former soldiers have reunited, calling themselves the "Haitian Army." The soldiers insist that the army be reinstated and included in any discussion of Haiti's future. These heavily armed soldiers assist HNP operations, and conduct their own, in the poorest and most densely populated neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. They dress in green military fatigues or camouflage, and green helmets and carry large military guns.(...)

The investigators went to the Pétionville base where 300 heavily armed and uniformed irregular FADH soldiers were milling about, some sporting swords and carrying gas masks in addition to automatic rifles. They have been given a large apartment building for their use, and neighborhood residents supply their food and spending money and wash their clothes. All soldiers interviewed stated that Pétionville's residents "love us very much." (...)

Investigators interviewed the second in command, Commander Jean-Baptiste Joseph, age 42. Commander Joseph stated that a force of 5,000 of the irregular FADH soldiers is currently on "active duty" throughout Haiti. In addition to the 300 soldiers stationed in Pétionville, Joseph stated that the irregular FADH has established large bases in Ouanaminthe, Cap Haïtien, Fort Liberté, Jérémie, Petit Goave, and Jacmel. Joseph stated that FADH opened its base in Pétionville on February 29, 2004, the day of President Aristide's ouster, but that the high command did not arrive until the end of October. He stated that FADH is in Pétionville upon the "invitation of the residents of Pétionville."

Joseph stated that the Army is standing by in Pétionville until the Government gives them what they demand: official authority to provide security to the city. He stated that his soldiers do, however, go out "whenever they receive a call."

Joseph did not explain what responding to a call meant, because the interview was interrupted by a heavy-set man in civilian clothes who burst into the room and announced that help was needed in La Saline. Commander Joseph then apologized, put on his helmet, grabbed a semi-automatic rifle, and jogged out the door and down the steps of the building.

The man who had interrupted (...) then told the investigators, in unaccented English, that "our men have been attacked" while providing back-up security to the APN, Haiti's official port police unit. (...)

Subsequently, the man shouted commands as approximately 100 soldiers lined up. A group of about 20 were chosen to ride in an SUV and a pick-up truck to respond to the report. Some of the chosen men blessed themselves while others yelled, "we are going to kill all the 'rat pa kaka,'" a dehumanizing term for the poor young men assumed to support Lavalas and the return of President Aristide. The soldiers sped away, large firearms in full view, driving several miles through Port-au-Prince to La Saline. One of the trucks had no license plate. The other operation truck displayed official government plates. The English speaking officer refused to provide other details about the irregular FADH's work, but stated that he learned English because he was "fully trained in warfare in the United States." He gave his name as "Jean André." (...)

(To be continued)

Tom Griffin will speak about his findings at a mass rally on Feb. 27 at 5 p.m. at Clara Barton High School, 901 Classon Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. Journalist Kevin Pina's new documentary "Haiti: The Betrayal of Democracy" will also be screened. For more information, call 718-434-8100.