16435: Dreyfuss: New York Sun article (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Joel Dreyfuss <jdreyfuss@attglobal.net>

I have read the article below several times before being able to compose a
comment.
IF the story of the sacrifice of a baby to assure the regime's survival is
true, it's telling of the depths the Haitian society has fallen to in these
times.

BUT WHAT IF IT IS NOT TRUE? Even Raymond Joseph, the author, declares in the
fourth paragraph that there are doubts about the reported incident. If you
don't know for sure, why not try to verify it from different sources before
you publish such disturbing allegations? A defector may say anything to
qualify for asylum. But an important political opponent of the regime has a
duty to veracity, even when addressing an audience outside the Haitian
community (which is the New York Sun - a conservative alternative daily
aimed at people who think the New York Times is too liberal and too
anti-Israel).

And if this reported incident is not true, all this article does is add fuel
to the stereotype that Haitians are BEASTS, something that the enemies of
intervention in Haiti would gladly accept if only because it relieves them
of the responsibility of holding the Aristide regime to a global standard of
behavior in their declared commitment to democratic government.

Stories about human sacrificre in Haiti go back to people like St. John
Perse and other slanderers of Haiti. There are too many unanswered question:
even this amateur knows that human sacrifice is not a part of the
established liturgy of vaudun. If someone performed a human sacrifice it
would have to be a bokor, a practioner of black magic, not a practitioner of
traditional vaudun. Second, while many of us have been disappointed by
Aristide, can we believe that this former priest could have come so far from
the teachings of the Church to which he devoted more than half his life to
endorse human sacrifice?

I find it disturbing to see an entire article based on such flimsy evidence
in the New York Sun and even more by a Haitian who is the publisher of Haiti
Observateur. This is not responsible journalism and if it is untrue, very
harmful to Haiti in ways that go far beyond the current political conflict.



Monday August 18, 2003

[article from the New York Sun]


The Observer 58

Disturbing Revelations of Human Sacrifice

By Raymond A. Joseph



            In the wake of several defections from the embattled Haitian
regime, some disturbing revelations about alleged human sacrifice have
thrown a new light on the ruling authorities in Haiti.

            Various executions early in the year 2000, prior to the
fraudulent elections of that summer and fall were intended to ensure the
comeback of Jean-Bertrand Aristide to the presidency he had reluctantly
relinquished in February 1996. So said Johnny Occilius, a member of the
mayoralty of Cite Soleil, who defected last month.

            Among the most scandalous of his disclosures was the gruesome
sacrifice of the first baby of a young mother, Nanoune Myrthil. The date was
important, Mr. Occilius said, in an interview. It was February 29, the last
day in a month that will recur in four years. And "the lamb" must have been
a first born baby. Thus, the Myrthil baby was "at the right place at the
wrong time," Mr. Occilius said. The administrator of the   State University
Hospital in Port-au-Prince, also known as General Hospital, Marie-Antoinette
Gauthier, made possible the snatching of the baby only 72 hours after birth.

            Somewhere in the countryside north of the capital, the sacrifice
took place that same night. The live baby was crushed in a mortar with a
heavy pestle. Officiating was Voodoo sorcerer Henri Antoine from St. Marc,
the same thug who founded the pro-Aristide so-called  popular organization
"Bale Wouze,"  or "Clean Sweep"  in English.

            The bestial crime boggles the mind, and some people question the
veracity of Mr. Occilius's revelations. But who would have thought that men
infected with the AIDS virus in South Africa believe that they can be healed
by having intercourse with a young virgin! Anyway, Mr. Occilius, now in
exile in Miami, has gained credibility with the American authorities. When
the young man described what happened at the government-sponsored attack on
the civil society "Group 184" at Cite Soleil on July 12, American Ambassador
Brian Dean Curran said his information concurred with that of the embassy's
own investigation.

            Meanwhile, Jean Michel Mercier, assistant mayor of
Port-au-Prince, from 1995 to 2000, confirmed the disclosures of Mr. Occilius
and added that the execution last year of a powerful leader of a "popular
organization" was connected to the baby crime. Felix Bien-Aime disappeared
after he had threatened to spill the beans on the sacrifice of the baby. At
one time, Mr. Bien-Aime controlled the major cemetery in Port-au-Prince, a
source of cash that he lost following a fallout with the regime. When he
tried to blackmail some of his former associates with information about the
baby, Mr. Bien-Aime was invited with two aides to the main police station in
Port-au-Prince. Only his partly burned car was found near Ti Tanyen, a
killing field about 15 miles north of the Haitian capital.

            Now in exile, Mr. Mercier also calls for the interrogation of
Harold Severe, a former member of the mayor's office in Port-au-Prince, an
ex-employee at the presidential palace and now an assistant to the contested
new police chief. In writing, Mr. Mercier says he had seen Mr. Severe and at
least three other men in a white pick-up near the crime scene of eminent
journalist Jean Leopold Dominique on the morning of April 3, 2000. The
"murderous bent" of Harold Severe, he contends, was a determining factor in
his flight from Haiti. He adds that he was pressured to join the government
again, but he couldn't take it anymore.

            Mr. Mercier provides a list of key individuals who attended
meetings at Mr. Aristide's Voodoo medium, Annette Auguste, a naturalized
American citizen nicknamed "Sister Anne." Usually the meetings dealt with
activities aimed at consolidating the regime's power. Two of the characters
at the sessions -- Jocelerme Privert and Bell Angelot - are now Nos. 1 and 2
respectively at the Ministry of the Interior, in charge of internal
security. Others, like former police chief Jean-Robert Faveur, police
spokesman Jean Dady Simeon and judiciary police chief Jeannot Francois, are
now in exile in America or in Canada.

            The latest defection, Charles Jean Panel of the Delmas 33 police
precinct in Port-au-Prince, prepared a cassette that has been widely used by
radio stations in and out of Haiti. He accuses the regime of infiltrating
the police with armed  civilian thugs that  have been issued identification
cards by Minister of the Interior Privert.  The new version of the old
"attaches" and the gestapo-like "Tontons Macoute" of yore operate at the
precinct with the consent of  the police commander, Emmanuel Mompremier.
This  corrupt officer lives in a $400,000 mansion, although his official
monthly salary is about $300.

            The "attaches" operate mostly at night, from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m.
They are empowered to use the "zero tolerance" doctrine -- or execution on
the spot -- publicly expounded by President Aristide. Mr. Panel said the
armed civilians "torture people in a special cell at the precinct before
leading some to the Place Cazeau [north of the capital] where they are
executed."

            Judie Roy, a former Aristide loyalist who has turned opponent,
was recently arrested and tortured at the Delmas 33 police inferno. Despite
worldwide entreaties, even from Amnesty International, regarding Mrs. Roy,
she has not been released. She is accused of being sympathetic to rebels
operating in Haiti's central highlands.

            How can the Bush administration  ignore such barbarism so close
to America, while it dispatches soldiers to far away places like
Afghanistan, Iraq and Liberia to oust murderous dictators? Must the savagery
spill in the streets and cause thousands of refugees to southern Florida
before causing a stir in Washington?

            Perhaps we are getting there. On Wednesday there was an ugly
confrontation between heavily armed policemen, technically under the command
of Hermione Leonard,  and the palace police detail that accompanied the
president's two young daughters. The ugly scene took place near the
Port-au-Prince airport, prompting all kinds of rumors. Is it true that the
girls were going to visit their grandparents in Miami?  Who ordered their
car blocked? Is it true that President Aristide opposed the trip of the
children, although his American wife is adamant that the children leave? Who
ordered the jailing at the palace of about a dozen policemen of the Western
Department involved in the confrontation Wednesday? Who summoned Commander
Leonard of the Western Department to the palace for interrogation?

            Whatever the answers, it's clear that a breakdown exists at the
higher echelons of the "criminal enterprise" that passes for government in
Haiti. It behooves the authorities in Washington to attend to the Haitian
crisis expeditiously.

[end of article]




Joel Dreyfuss
jdreyfuss@attglobal.net