16696: This Week in Haiti 21:25 9/3/2003 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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                           HAITI PROGRES
              "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                      * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                       September 3 - 9,2003
                          Vol. 21, No. 25

ANSE-À-PITRES:
FORMER SOLDIERS ACCUSED OF MURDER

On Aug. 12 in the locality of Bannann in the commune of Anse-à-Pitres, four
former soldiers macheted a young man to death, according to area residents.

The victim, known as Flang, was ambushed by the former soldiers, known in
the area as Dumas, Domingue, Osmar, and Hénoc, according to accounts. The
attack happened shortly after the Bannann justice of the peace, Gentèl,
sent word for Flang to return to him the keys to a house the victim was
renting from him. According to the victim's younger brother, Gentèl hired
the former soldiers to kill Flang over a debt of 15,000 Dominican pesos
(US$442).

The attackers sounded a conch shell before launching their attack, Flang's
brother said. The victim tried to run away, but the attackers caught him
and hacked him to death, he said.

Residents say that the victim's body was cut into three separate pieces,
which Gentèl arranged to be buried in a hastily dug grave without
consulting the family.

The former soldiers escaped to Pedernales, the Dominican town just across
the border from Anse-à-Pitres. They told Dominican authorities that they
were fleeing persecution in Haiti.

However, citizens of Anse-à-Pitres, outraged by the savagery of the murder,
pressured Dominican authorities, who had the four suspects arrested. Now
the Haitian government must make a formal request that the men be returned
to Haiti to stand trial.

Gentèl has already gone into hiding.

HINCHE:
COMMANDOS SOW TERROR

A group of unidentified armed men attacked the home of Claudel Cazeau, the
Haitian government delegate to Hinche, on the evening of Aug. 25.

Cazeau charged that the attackers, who fired shots at and around his house,
were trying to assassinate him and sow terror in the town.

Indeed, gunfire was heard all over the town that night. The armed men also
fired on the residence of a group of engineers who had come from
Port-au-Prince to work on the reconstruction of the public place in Hinche.
No one was wounded or arrested.

The situation is not helped by the fact that Hinche has had not electricity
for over a year.

Anti-government guerillas, known as the San Manman (Motherless) Army, have
carried out numerous attacks in recent months in the towns of Lascahobas
and Belladère, some 30 kilometers south of Hinche. It was not clear if last
week's attacks were related.

Cazeau asked the Haitian police to launch a full investigation the attacks.

MIREBALAIS:
ATTACKERS, SEEKING HUSBAND, KILL WIFE

On Aug. 28, unidentified armed men killed Elisiane Estimphor, a young woman
of about 35, in the rural hamlet of Gaskòy, in the commune of Mirebalais.
According to the Mirebalais Justice of the Peace Sergo Guillaume, the men
wanted the victim to tell them the whereabouts of her husband.

The men also set ablaze three houses, shot dead two dogs, and wounded two
cows.

PETITE RIVIÈRE:
LITERACY PROGRAM STUMBLING

Teachers deployed around Petite Rivière de l'Artibonite as a part of the
government's "Alfa" literacy program have not been paid and may soon leave
their posts, said Jean Jeannot Verseau, the coordinator of the local
government there (CASEC).

The literacy program in that area is reaching a point of "breakdown,"
Verseau said on Aug. 19. While recognizing that there is a "socio-economic
crisis" presently afflicting Haiti, Verseau pleaded with central government
authorities to root out mismanagement and corruption in the administration
of the literacy program.

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