17939: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Ex-general accused of role in mass killing in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Jan. 15, 2004

IMMIGRATION LAW
Ex-general accused of role in mass killing in Haiti
A former Haitian general who briefly led the military under U.S. occupation
is arrested in Orlando on a Haitian warrant linking him to a massacre.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@herald.com

Jean-Claude Duperval, a former major general who briefly led the Haitian
military under U.S. occupation a decade ago, was arrested in Orlando early
Wednesday in connection with a warrant from Haiti linking him to one of the
worst massacres in Haitian history.

In 1994, soldiers and paramilitary thugs targeted anti-military dissidents
in the poor beachfront neighborhood of Raboteau north of Port-au-Prince
shooting or beating to death at least 26 people.

Duperval, 56, is the highest ranking former Haitian military officer
detained in the United States as a suspected foreign human rights violator.
He was given command of the Haitian military in October 1994 by former Gen.
Raoul Cedras after the United States intervened to restore President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

Duperval, the fifth former Haitian officer detained in the United States in
connection with the massacre, is awaiting deportation back to Haiti where he
has been convicted in absentia of murder.

If deported, he is likely to be jailed on arrival.

Duperval, who has been living in the United States for about nine years, had
been targeted by the federal human rights violators unit and is one of more
than 60 foreign torture suspects, many from Haiti, who have been arrested in
the United States since the immigration service began tracking foreign human
rights violators in 2000.

Barbara Gonzalez, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
confirmed the arrest. Duperval was in detention at an Orange County facility
awaiting deportation proceedings.

''This country will not serve as a safe haven to human rights violators,''
said Steven J. Trent, ICE's Tampa Special Agent in Charge.

Federal immigration officials were given the green light to nab Duperval
after the Board of Immigration Appeals ruled earlier this month that he
could be deported. The ruling overturned an immigration judge's decision
several years ago allowing him to stay.

''Duperval is among the more notorious of the Haitian persecutors,'' said
Bill West, a former senior immigration service official in Miami who helped
launch the program to find torture suspects under the former Immigration and
Naturalization Service. ``This arrest . . . demonstrates that [immigration],
at least in Florida, is serious and aggressive in pursuing the human rights
persecutor initiative.''

Brian Concannon Jr., a Haiti-based attorney who investigated the Raboteau
killings, said Duperval was tried and convicted in absentia and found guilty
of murder in connection with the massacre.

Concannon said investigators never found evidence that Duperval killed
anyone or ordered anyone to be killed. He was found culpable as a member of
the Haitian military high command who knew or should have known about the
atrocities and took no action to stop them or punish those involved.

Over two days in April 1994, Haitian soldiers and paramilitary allies
rampaged through Raboteau, a stronghold of Aristide, who was ousted by the
military in 1991 and restored to office in 1994.

When the massacre ended, at least 26 unarmed men, women and children had
been killed. The massacre was one of the catalysts for the U.S. military
intervention.

''I hope for an army of the people,'' Duperval said 10 years ago at the
command-transfer ceremony in Port-au-Prince. ``A united army that respects
law, discipline and the rights of the individual.''

Duperval entered the United States in October 1995 as a visitor and settled
in Florida along with scores of other Haitian ex-military and paramilitary
leaders.

Newsweek found him in the Orlando area and publicized his case in April
2002.

While in Orlando, Duperval was hired in 1997 by Walt Disney World Resort to
operate water ferries and worked there for about three years.

Disney officials declined to say if Duperval resigned or was fired. They
said they were unaware of his background.

In 2002, Duperval told Newsweek: I want to keep my privacy and don't want to
give any declaration. All this is past for me. I have a daughter to educate
and am no longer in public life.''

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