12292: Re: 12168: Re: 12166: Re: 12163: Haitian Refugees (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Chris Chapman <chrisdchapman@yahoo.com>

Dear all,

(sorry to reply so late to this discussion partly due
to a technical problem where my mail couldn't be
posted on the first attempt).

Regarding the discussion of the INS policy of
detention of Haitians, just two points:

The US is a party to the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights  which in Art. 2 states:
"Each State Party to the present Covenant undertakes
to respect and to ensure to all individuals  within
its territory and subject to its jurisdiction the
rights recognised in the  present covenant, without
distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex,
language, religion, political or other  opinion,
*national or social origin*, property, birth, or other
status". [my asterisks].

Some of the rights in the covenant that the US may be
found to be applying in an unequal and discriminatory
way in the case of the detained Haitian asylum
seekers, are: right to freedom of movement (Art. 12),
and the right to freedom from arbitrary detention
(Art. 9). Art. 9 also states that "it shall not be a
general rule that persons awaiting trial shall be
detained in custody". I am not a lawyer, but as I
understand it (and please correct me if I am wrong,
those who have expertise in the field), Article 2
means that a State will be found in breach if it has
applied any of the other articles in a discriminatory
way without reasonable justification - i.e. it doesn't
actually have to violate Art. 9 or 12 or whichever,
but simply apply it one way for some people, and one
way for others.

I don't know when the US is due to be examined by the
UN on its compliance with the convention - it will in
the next couple of years and maybe some NGOs could get
together and submit some informtion to the UN on this
matter.

My other point regards Mambo Racine Sans Bout's
assertion that there is no credible reason for any
Haitians to seek asylum. In Haiti it is very hard to
discover the truth behind events - I know, I worked as
a journalist and a human rights monitor there - but in
a situation where there is regularly news of threats
or violence against, or disappearances of, union
activists, human rights activists, opposition
politicians, and witnesses in major trials implicating
high-placed political figures, blanket statements that
there can never be any credible asylum claim from
Haiti don't seem to me to be the right approach.
Instead, each case should be looked at on its merits,
with a careful consideration of the allegations made.
Don't make the mistake of assuming that persecution
has to be carried out directly by the official
security forces - a state is often guilty of
complicity or worse, if it is secretely supporting
paramilitary or other unofficial groups, or even if it
is simply not doing enough to stop their actions.

Furthermore, leaving aside the specifics of Haiti,
persecution can happen in any country. In the 90's the
UK finally had to scrap its 'white list' policy,
whereby any country on that list was presumed to be a
safe country from which asylum claims would not be
entertained. One of the countries on the list was
Pakistan! A U.S. citizen applied for asylum in Sweden
recently because he had been taking a complaint
against the local police department for mistreatment,
and had apparently received death threats. I don't
know whether his allegations were proved but the point
is that it could happen, and that any allegation of
such a nature should be given serious consideration.

Chris Chapman