a1697: Newsweek Exclusive: Duperval in Florida-Legally (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

Is the United States a Haven for Torturers?

A general convicted of human-rights violations in Haiti is
now living in Florida. Activists say he is just one of many
who has found sanctuary here. NEWSWEEK tracked the officer
down to his new home—and his job at Disney World

By Joseph Contreras
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE



      April 12 —  Morning had not yet dawned over the seedy
shacks of Raboteau when the soldiers and paramilitary thugs
arrived in pickup trucks and fanned out through the fetid
streets of the beachfront slum. The date was April 22,1994,
and the three-year-old dictatorship of Haitian strongman
Raoul Cedras was beginning to totter. Throughout the Cedras
era, the port city of Gonaives had remained a bastion of
support for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the democratically
elected president toppled by the Haitian military in
1991—and nowhere did pro-Aristide sentiment run higher than
among the destitute fishermen and storekeepers of Raboteau.


FOR PRECISELY THAT REASON, the residents of the Gonaives
slum were singled out for punitive treatment by Cedras in
the final months of his rule. As the troops and vigilantes
kicked down doors and rounded up suspected Aristide
sympathizers in the pitch darkness, hundreds of Raboteau
slum dwellers fled toward the waters of the Caribbean.
Lying in wait for them on the nearby beach were other shock
troops of the regime. The sounds of automatic gunfire
drowned out the screams of terrorized residents that day,
and untold dozens died in the predawn fusillade.


 “Those who tortured and murdered in other countries should
not be able to evade justice and live in the United States
without fear of arrest and prosecution.”
— WILLIAM F. SCHULZ
Amnesty USA's executive director

Among the Cedras confederates found complicit in the
massacre by Haitian courts was Jean-Claude Duperval, an
army major general who was the nation’s highest-ranking
military officer after Cedras. The 55-year-old Duperval
disappeared into the shadows soon after the fall of Cedras
in September 1994. Duperval turned up months later in
Florida after entering the United States on a legal visa.
In December 1997, a Haitian magistrate issued arrest
warrants for Duperval, Cedras and eight other military
officers on charges of murder, attempted murder, torture
and other crimes stemming from the Raboteau massacre. All
told, Duperval and more than 30 other soldiers and
paramilitary gunmen were convicted in absentia in November
2000 of crimes ranging from criminal conspiracy to
homicide.
        On the basis of that conviction, a retired State
Department official and former Nazi hunter named Richard
Krieger is calling on the U.S. government to prosecute and
deport Duperval—and dozens of other Haitians suspected of
committing human-rights abuse whom Krieger believes are now
living on American soil. “It is disheartening to learn that
at least 36 Haitian perpetrators of extrajudicial killing
and torture have found their way into this country,
including those connected both by deeds and orders in the
Raboteau massacre,” says Krieger, president of the Boynton
Beach, Fla.-based nonprofit group International Educational
Missions. “Over 3,000 people were slaughtered by these
people, with the leaders of that action including such
notable residents as Jean-Claude Duperval. We look forward
to the U.S. government taking action on all of them as
quickly as possible.”
        The presence of Duperval and hundreds of other
alleged human-rights violators in the United States was
spotlighted this week in a 174-page report released by
Amnesty International USA and entitled “United States of
America: A Safe Haven for Torturers.” According to the
human-rights organization, the U.S. government acknowledges
that up to 1,000 suspected torturers and murderers from
countries such as Honduras, Ethiopia, Indonesia and Somalia
may have fled to American shores to escape justice at home.


But Amnesty International USA officials say the feds have
yet to prosecute a single case in the eight years since an
act of Congress empowered U.S. attorneys to put such
fugitives on trial. “Those who tortured and murdered in
other countries should not be able to evade justice and
live in the United States without fear of arrest and
prosecution,” says Amnesty USA’s executive director,
William F. Schulz. “The U.S. government is adept at taking
people into custody as it has shown by its detention of
some 1,200 individuals following the attacks of September
11, the vast majority of whom have been charged only with
visa violations. How ironic, then, that we have been
unwilling to move against at least 150 people living in
this country who there is good reason to believe are
responsible for far more serious crimes.” In response to a
NEWSWEEK inquiry, an Amnesty International USA spokesman
confirmed that Jean-Claude Duperval is among those 150.
        Contacted by phone at his one-story house in a
blue-collar neighborhood in Orlando on April 11, Duperval
confirmed that he was the major general who served under
Cedras. Duperval declined to give any other details or
reaction to his conviction. “I want to keep my privacy and
don’t want to give any declaration,” he told NEWSWEEK. “All
this is past for me, I have a daughter to educate and am no
longer in public life.”
        The father of five also declined to provide any
details regarding his job at Walt Disney World in Orlando.
Disney spokesman Bill Warren confirmed on April 11 that
Duperval was an hourly employee of the company. The next
day, Warren told NEWSWEEK that Duperval was first hired in
1997 and that as of April 12, he was no longer an employee
of Disney World. Warren said the company had not been aware
of Duperval’s Haitian criminal conviction prior to being
contacted by NEWSWEEK.
        According to Krieger, a native New Yorker who
tracked down nine suspected Nazi-era war criminals and got
some of them deported before joining the State Department
as a refugee-policy specialist in the 1980s, Duperval was
facing deportation from the United States until an
immigration judge ruled in his favor in 2000. Patricia
Mancha, an Immigration and Naturalization Service spokesman
for the Miami District Office, told NEWSWEEK that Duperval
“legally applied for an immigration benefit under the
provisions of the Haitian Refugee Immigration Fairness
Act.”
        The INS opposed the application said Mancha, “but
Duperval received the benefit and INS has appealed that
decision. Given that the appeal is pending and the matter
is before the courts, we cannot release information without
a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request,” she said.
        Duperval has apparently applied for political
asylum. “The INS investigations unit is aware of the
allegations against Mr. Duperval,” says one INS official.
“We are allowing due process to take its course.”
        The release of the Amnesty International USA report
may give new impetus to pending legislation introduced by
Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy and Republican Congressman
Mark Foley. Their bipartisan bill would broaden the powers
of the Justice Department and other federal agencies to
prevent war criminals, torturers and terrorists from
entering the country or deport them once are they
identified.
        Krieger is one of the legislation’s prime
advocates. “It’s essential that this legislation be
enacted,” he says. “Then we as a country can act on the
more than 1,000 foreign perpetrators of atrocities and
religious persecution who have found their way here.” And
against those who may try to follow in their footsteps.

       © 2002 Newsweek, Inc.


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