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#1988: more details on the french tourists (fwd)
From:Ninaclara@aol.com
I was in Jacmel this past weekend, staying in Cyvadier, a few houses away
from the hotel where the French tourists were staying. Everybody in Jacmel
was talking about the murders so I'm passing on what I heard from people. I
am not a journalist and was not doing research on the murders so this is just
one version of the story and some of the details may be incorrect or
elaborations by the local population. The most thorough and first hand
account I heard came from a Haitian man who several times had done various
kinds of work for the family: bringing them lobster, putting them in touch
with peasants who had land to sell and so on. According to him he had an
appointment with the family the morning of the murders and was waiting
downstairs for them from 7:30 until 10:00 when the mother finally came down
looking for help. He went to the police, who already had news of several
unidentified bodies. This man was then asked to come with the police to
identify the bodies. The story he and others told me was macabre, to say the
least. Simidor was on the mark in assuming there were former military and
police involved. Even if the killers had not been found (which they have
been, all except one) the brutality of the murders indicates professional
killers. Each of the bodies was found distorted and maimed in a different
location. The victims were individually beaten to death with rocks, the young
girl's throat was slashed with a coca cola bottle.
Three people were killed: a Haitian man who was an artist, friend and driver
for the family while they were in Jacmel, his close friend and this friends
daughter, an eighteen year old girl. The Haitian man had been living in
France on and off for about ten years and lived for part of the time with the
French family. It seems the family already had strong connections to
Guadeloupe, where they have a home and business. The family came to Jacmel
with their long time friend, immediately liked Jacmel and decided to invest
there. They were involved in purchasing land, which people told me were to be
used for several projects, including a hotel, a freezer for fish and lobster
and some kind of manufacturing plant. I was also told they had been involved
in a project to provide motors for the boats of a group of fishermen. Their
Haitian friend was helping them to buy land, making connections for them etc.
and mentioned his friend's plans to a cousin. The cousin is former FAHD and
had a zenglando 'baz' that included a former HNP expelled from the force for
cocaine dealing. I don't know anything about the four others involved. The
first person killed was the friend of the family. It is generally assumed
that the cousin and his gang were looking for a large sum of money, that the
friend refused or could not divulge its whereabouts and was then killed to
prevent him from identifying the attackers. The cousin and one other, I
believe the former HNP, took the car and went to the Cyvadier hotel at about
4:30 in the morning. The cousin told the family that their driver/friend had
been hurt in an accident and was at the hospital. The father decided to leave
with the cousin, over protests of his wife. They killed the father. Still not
finding the money they returned to the hotel. This part of the story is very
fuzzy; I'm not sure what story they told daughter and mother at this point
but the daughter decided to leave with them. The mother still refused. At
this point it was full daylight and many eyewitnesses saw the car with the
girl in it. The car is said to have pulled over at which point she bought
cokes for herself, the cousin and his friend. The vendor didn't have change
so the girl said they would come back for it when they dropped off the
bottles. One of the coke bottles was eventually found lying near the girl,
broken in two. They used it to slash the girl's throat. The man who
identified the bodies said that girl was half naked and it is generally said
that she was raped before being killed (I don't know if this has been
confirmed by the police).
It is hard to describe the trauma these events have caused in Jacmel. The man
telling me this story said that he passed out when he saw the girl, went home
and didn't eat for four days. When I was in Jacmel it was impossible not to
hear talk and speculation about the murders. I remember someone on the list
saying that during the coup, FRAPH would often take someone from one
quartier, kill them in another and dump the body someplace else so that the
terror could be spread as widely as possible. There is something like this in
this case, though it is hard to say if this was intentional or an accidental
result of the killer's savagery and stupidity. If the people were murdered
to hide the identity of the killers, why did they wander around Jacmel with
the girl in the car, even stopping for cokes? After killing two people and
dumping the bodies, why would they then take the time to rape the girl?
The story generally makes very little sense to me, but I would make two
comments about aspects of it that are clear: One is that these crimes were
not committed by 'the Haitian people' in general but by a group of very sick
thugs, at least two of whom had been schooled in institutional violence. The
people of Jacmel are totally sickened by the murders. Secondly, whether they
are organized with some kind of political program in mind or not (I find this
kind of doubtful) they do have political effects. Very often after recounting
the details of the story the person would then say to me; "such a thing could
not have happened under X" (Francois, Baby Doc whoever), so that in the minds
of many people the failure of democracy and lavalas generally is underlined
by these crimes. Terror spread by disorganized thugs and gangs seem to make
people long nostalgically for state sponsored terror...