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a1111: This Week in Haiti 19:51 3/6/2002 (fwd)
"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
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HAITI PROGRES
"Le journal qui offre une alternative"
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
March 6 - 12, 2002
Vol. 19, No. 51
NEW PRIME MINISTER, NEW OAS MISSION, BUT SAME OLD PROBLEM
After a week of rumors that it was coming, on Mar. 4, President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide nominated Yvon Neptune, the number two of
his Lavalas Family party (FL), to replace outgoing Prime Minister
Jean-Marie Chérestal (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 49,
2/20/02).
Neptune, 55, is expected to breeze through his confirmation
hearings, as did his predecessor, since the FL dominates the
parliament. As Senate president and interim FL head since
Aristide's Feb. 7, 2001 inauguration, Neptune has generally
imitated Aristide's vague and elliptical style in his discourse,
though he has sometimes made sharp denunciations of the
"laboratory" -- shorthand in Haiti for Washington's diplomatic-
military-intelligence complex. He will be the sixth prime
minister in the six years that Aristide, over two terms, has been
Haiti's president.
Neptune was born on Nov. 8, 1946 in the southern town of
Cavaillon and attended school in the nearby city of Les Cayes.
During the 1970s, he studied architecture at colleges in New York
and Paris. He worked for a New York architectural firm and lived
on Long Island in the 1980s and early 90s, while participating in
progressive community groups and radio programs. Neptune is
married and has three grown children.
With Aristide's post-coup return to Haiti, Neptune became
presidential spokesperson from Nov. 1, 1994 until Aristide left
office on Feb. 7, 1996. He then became deeply involved in
building the FL, which was officially launched as a party in Nov.
1996. He also taught English at the Aristide Foundation for
Democracy in the Tabarre suburb of Port-au-Prince.
Under the FL's banner, he was easily elected as a Senator for the
Western department in May 21, 2000.
Neptune told the Haitian Press Agency that he would "defend the
interests of the nation and not those of the Lavalas Family" and
would call on "all sectors of the country in the framework of
forming the new team."
Despite such magnanimous posturing, Washington is taking no
chances and has had the Organization of American States (OAS)
send a "Special Mission for the Reinforcement of Democracy in
Haiti." The mission is nothing less than a state within a state.
The agreement establishing the mission, which was signed by
Haiti's Foreign Minister Joseph Antonio and OAS Assistant
Secretary Luigi Einaudi on Mar. 1, devotes most of its eight
pages to defining the powers, privileges and immunities of the
Mission's members, who have a one-year mandate but whose number
is open-ended.
The Mission's purposes are completely vague and number only two:
"a) to undertake investigations and evaluations that they judge
necessary b) to formulate the recommendations and furnish the aid
which they judge pertinent."
To further this obscure agenda, the Haitian government agrees to
allow the Mission free access anywhere in Haiti, as well as "full
access to all the state apparatus, state bodies, and governmental
entities and to their archives and documents," while the
government "will give the Mission and its members all the
facilities needed to carry out its functions" as well as "any
needed technical and administrative collaboration." In other
words, Haiti, you are going to pay for your own supervision. One
wonders how such permissive access will "reinforce democracy" in
Haiti and when Washington would ever allow such probing of its
own state apparatus.
The arrangement is very reminiscent of the United Nations weapons
inspectors to Iraq (to pick just one example), in that the
mission provides Washington with a win/win scenario. Either the
target country fully cooperates in its complete infiltration and
x-ray analysis by foreign agents, or, if it resists, there is a
pretext for more coercive action to "correct" its disobedient
ways.
Already such disciplining has begun. Arch-reactionary Otto Reich
has been named U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for the Western
Hemisphere. "He says that one of the administration's tools to
fight [corruption] will be a practice of the revoking of U.S.
visas of government officials who have stolen from the public
purse," reports the Wall Street Journal's conservative columnist
Mary Anastasia O'Grady on Mar. 1. Therefore it was no surprise to
learn on Mar. 4 that the U.S. government intends to yank the U.S.
visas of 60 Haitian government and police officials. The list was
not yet made public at press time, by either the Haitian or U.S.
governments.
Meanwhile, Washington's low-intensity war to destabilize Haiti
continues apace. Suspicious gang strife has turned Cité Soleil,
the capital's largest slum, into an uninhabitable war zone over
the past two months. During that time, about 40 people have been
killed, 100 wounded, several hundred women raped, and over a
thousand shacks destroyed, according to the Collective of
Notables of Cité Soleil (CONOC). Residents of the area feel there
is a hidden hand at work.
"I think that people see that this is something planned," one
Cité Soleil resident declared on Radio Kiskeya last month. "Since
Dec. 17 [when gunmen attempted to assassinate Aristide and took
over the National Palace for several hours], I've noticed gang
members are wearing bullet-proof vests, and worse still, they
have guns and bullets. It's true that they sometimes hold up
people for money for ammunition, but where can they buy
ammunition? What store in Port-au-Prince sells it? For gangs to
be fighting for a month and six days, that takes a lot of
bullets. Where did they find that ammunition? Am I in
Afghanistan?"
If Neptune thinks he is going to combat this degenerating
situation by integrating sworn enemies into his administration,
he will be committing the same mistake as Chérestal, who put
Duvalierists and putschists in key posts. Washington and its
servants in the Democratic Convergence opposition front are not
impressed or enticed by Neptune's overtures. They are on an all-
out offensive to overthrow Aristide. The next weeks will tell
whether Neptune realizes this or not.
COURT RESCUES THREE CONVICTED LOUIMA COPS
On Feb. 28, three judges of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
overturned the verdicts delivered against former police officers
Charles Schwarz, Thomas Wiese and Thomas Bruder for conspiring to
obstruct justice in the investigation of the 1997 torture of
Abner Louima (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 15, No. 22, 8/20/1997). The
appellate court also wiped away Schwarz's conviction for
assisting Justin Volpe on the grounds that his defense was shoddy
and the jury influenced.
The unusual ruling reversing one of the most important police
brutality trials in U.S. history has outraged the Haitian
community, human rights activists, and legal experts. "I have not
reviewed all the finer points of the decision, but my gut feeling
is that these results can only occur if the defendant is a police
officer," remarked Dave Blackstone, a New York State Deputy
Capital Defender,
The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jonas Louima, Abner's brother, went to
Washington, D.C. on Mar. 5 to lobby for federal intervention
following the court decision. However, with John Ashcroft as
Attorney General, this prospect is dim.
Sharp protests have also met reports that Bruder and Wiese may
seek reinstatement on the New York City police force, since some
argue that they cannot be prosecuted again under double-jeopardy
safeguards.
But Peter Neufeld, one of Louima's lawyers, is optimistic this
won't happen. "There is no way in the world that [Police]
Commissioner [Raymond] Kelly will ever let them back on the
force," he told Haïti Progrès. "There are cases far less serious
than this, where the police officer has been actually acquitted,
and they still don't let them back on the force."
Neufeld reported that his client was "very disturbed and terribly
disappointed" by the appellate decision but was ready to meet the
legal challenges ahead.
Outcry has erupted from many quarters. "You have a criminal
justice system that will not sleep as long as a white male is in
jail for killing or harming a black male," said Lt. Eric Adams,
president of 100 Blacks in Law Enforcement Who Care. Answering
the call of the Rev. Herbert Daughtry, demonstrators marched
through Brooklyn on Mar. 3 to voice their anger.
The shocking news comes just two weeks before the second
anniversary of the Mar. 16 fatal police shooting of Haitian-
American Patrick Dorismond (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 1,
3/22/00). Also, on Jan. 16, police gunned down another unarmed
Haitian, Georgy Louisgène, in Brooklyn as he beseeched them for
help (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 19, No. 45, 1/23/02).
The Haiti Support Network, a New York-based community solidarity
group in the forefront of the fight against police brutality in
recent years, issued the following statement in the wake of the
appellate court's decision:
THE SUBVERSION OF JUSTICE CANNOT BE TOLERATED
By overturning the convictions of three police officers for
stonewalling justice in the torture of Abner Louima, the U.S.
criminal justice system has once again proven its complicity with
police brutality, obstruction, and criminality, which is obvious
and well documented in this case.
It was apparent to the Haitian community and the world -- as well
as a jury of their peers -- that Charles Schwarz, Thomas Bruder,
and Thomas Wiese, along with many of their colleagues, worked
diligently to block the truth from coming out about that fateful
night of Aug. 9, 1997 when they mercilessly beat up Abner Louima
on the way to Brooklyn's 70th Precinct house and once there,
either Schwarz or Wiese assisted Justin Volpe in torturing the
victim.
Did any one of them come forward to volunteer what happened that
night? Did any one of them ever denounce the beatings and
torture, or attempt to stop it? No. Instead, once discovered,
they floated flabbergasting lies that Louima had ripped his colon
during rough sex at the Rendezvous Night Club before his arrest,
even though he was supposedly strong enough to knock down Volpe
with a single punch.
The three-member appellate court, which overturned the
convictions, had to admit that the officers "agreed generally to
impede investigators by putting forth and corroborating a false
version of what occurred." Then the judges used the oldest trick
in the book: a technicality. They ruled that there was "no
evidence" that the three cops "specifically" intended to obstruct
the federal grand jury looking into the case.
The appeals court also overturned Charles Schwarz's conviction
for assisting Volpe in the torture, claiming that his lawyer had
a conflict of interest and didn't do a good job and that the jury
was prejudiced. During the trial, Schwarz waived his option to
change his lawyer, who also represents the police union, when the
possible conflict of interest was raised. What's the point of a
waiver if an appellate court can recue everything?
Volpe said that Wiese was the cop who helped him. All the cops
have lied so much, it is hard to know what to believe. But their
finger-pointing looks like a tactic to confuse the public and
thwart justice. There is good reason for people to worry whether
Volpe's accomplice will ever be brought to justice, whoever he
is.
Ironically, a lacking lawyer and a predisposed jury are two of
the reasons that U.S. political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal has
repeatedly raised in an attempt to gain a new trial. His appeals,
however, have all been snubbed, and he remains in jail 21 years
later.
The Haiti Support Network (HSN) condemns with all its force this
transparent maneuver to roll back one of the exceptional cases
where policemen have been brought to justice for brutality
against the people they are supposed to serve. The HSN will work
with the Haitian community and others in the weeks and months
ahead to denounce and foil this attempt to plug the hole that was
finally punctured in the "blue wall of silence" and police
brutality.
----
On Saturday, Mar. 16 at 5:30 p.m., the parents of Patrick
Dorismond will hold a memorial mass for their son at St. Francis
Church, at the corner of Nostrand Ave. and Maple St. in Brooklyn.
The entire community and friends are encouraged to attend.
All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.
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