16728: 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 *

                      Sept. 03 - 09, 2003
                        Vol. 21, No. 25

ANSE- -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 Gaskoy, 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 RIVIERE:
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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