13444: Chamberlain posts news item: Human Rights-Haitian (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   MIAMI, Oct 23 (AP) -- An immigration judge ordered a Haitian man linked
to a massacre in Haiti to be deported, officials said Wednesday.
   Luc Asmath was arrested and charged with immigration violations in
September 2001. A judge denied him all forms of relief on Oct. 18 and
ordered him removed from the country, the Immigration and Naturalization
Service said Wednesday.
   Asmath was tried and convicted in absentia in a Haitian court for his
involvement in a massacre in Raboteau, a seaside shantytown of Gonaives
City; officials said soldiers and their paramilitary thugs burst into
dozens of homes, beating and arresting people, including the elderly and
children.
   The Raboteau slayings were part of a series of attacks undertaken to
break support for former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a charismatic
slum priest who became the Caribbean country's first democratically elected
leader in 1991.
   Soldiers and paramilitary killed at least 3,000 people and maimed
thousands more before U.S. President Bill Clinton in 1994 sent 20,000
troops to end the bloodshed and halt an exodus of boat people to Florida.
   "This latest case illustrates that INS in Florida will remain focused on
identifying and removing these people from the United States," INS district
director John Bulger said in a statement.