20282: Esser: Horror Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Horror Haiti

By Bill West
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 11, 2004

Less than two months ago the Bureau of Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) arrested and deported Jean-Claude Duperval, a
former Haitian army general and a US Court-designated human rights
persecutor, who was wanted for mass murder in Haiti. These alleged
acts stemmed from the tyranny imposed on the Haitian populace by the
military regime that ousted democratically elected president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Duperval was the last of the infamous
“Haitian Three” human rights violators, all former Haitian military
officers, wanted for their involvement in committing atrocities in
Haiti while in power. The other two, former Colonel Carl Dorelien and
former Lt. Colonel Herbert Valmond, had been previously arrested and
deported by the INS in Miami and, like Duperval, were being held in
the Haitian National Prison awaiting further judicial proceedings in
that country. That is, until now.

Recent events in Haiti make it unclear what the future holds for the
“Haitian Three” and at least a dozen lower level Haitian persecutors
who were arrested and deported from the US over the past three years.
The arrests, which occurred in South Florida under what had been the
INS’ Miami District's aggressive and successful human rights
persecutor apprehension program, were the precursor to the ICE’s
national level Operation No Safe Haven. The so-called rebels who have
allegedly liberated Haiti from Aristide are mainly former Haitian
army members and operatives of what had been the Front for
Advancement and Progress in Haiti (FRAPH), a “paramilitary”
organization aligned with corrupt military officials whose primary
mission was to kidnap, torture and murder political opponents. These
are now the “liberators” of a country where even the elected
president, Aristide, by almost everyone's account, was at best
completely incapable of effectively governing anywhere outside the
boundaries of his own presidential palace, and at worst not much
better than the dictators he replaced. 

 From any perspective--political, economic, or social--Haiti is in
terrible shape. It is a country incapable of supporting itself
agriculturally, or otherwise economically, and it is strategically
situated in a high-density drug trafficking corridor. It doesn’t take
much to understand why corruption among Haitian government officials
has been rampant at every level for a very long time. It is also
clear why Haiti has been a magnet for every variation of smuggler,
pirate, and thug who happens to ply the Caribbean. All of this adds
up to a long-term human rights disaster for the Haitian people.
Abject poverty, corrupt government (even when it’s democratically
elected), the barest minimum of law enforcement and judicial
authority, a steady flow of external dirty money and arms, and a
virtually unchecked and often officially sanctioned “rule of the
street gang,” has given the Western hemisphere what it now has--a
nation is name only, with seven million people, most of whom are
uneducated, hungry, in constant danger and fear, and who are always
at risk of being the victims of the next group of tyrants and their
henchmen. 

The leaders of the so-called rebels who, for the moment, tenuously
hold whatever reign of power exists in Haiti are former colleagues of
the notorious “Haitian Three.” Reports from the Haitian capital the
day after Aristide fled indicated prison guards exchanged their
uniforms for civilian clothes and allowed the inmates to flee. It’s
unknown at this point if any or all of the “Three” may have been
among those fleeing inmates. Given the fast changing situation on the
ground in Haiti, yesterday’s war criminal could be tomorrow’s prime
minister. Hopefully, the developing international security forces
will not allow that to happen; but it is not entirely clear yet who
will really be in charge. In the event Duperval, Dorelien, or Valmond
were to be free and become aligned with an evolving transitional
government, either overtly or behind the scenes, that could spell
disaster for anyone in country who had in any way had crossed them.
Even with that Troika of Terror free, but on the lam hiding from
international peacekeepers, they would have powerful allies among the
well-armed and well-placed thugs within Haitian society and they
could wreak no small amount of havoc, if they so chose. An important
question to be quickly answered is, “Where are the ‘Three’?”    

Haiti had only a couple of years of anything resembling hope. It was
immediately after Aristide’s return to power in 1994 by the efforts
of the US military intervention and the influx of large-scale
international aide. Ironically, the one shining example of Haitian
judicial process was the trial of the Raboteau massacre defendants,
which included Duperval, Dorelien, and Valmond, who were convicted in
absentia (because they were illegally in the US, facing deportation)
but guaranteed new trials if they returned to Haiti. The trial,
covered by the international media and scrupulously monitored by
international legal observers, was hailed as eminently fair and a
tribute to due process and a milestone for the Haitian judicial
system. For a time, the Haitian National Police, under the tutelage
of US police advisers, was in the process of becoming something that
passed for a police force instead of a force of armed thugs. For
political reasons, the US pulled out of Haiti within a few short
years of the 1994 intervention. Without the American military, police
and judicial advisers, the institutional degeneration of the police
and criminal justice system quickly set in and the corruption spread
even more quickly. Somewhat amazingly, relative to the human rights
persecutor suspects, the US was able to continue the deportation
process to Haiti almost to the end of the Aristide regime, as
evidenced by the Duperval removal. 

However, in the current chaos that now exists in Haiti, three issues
relative to human rights violators should be considered by the United
States and international forces about to embark on yet another
stabilization and nation building mission in that beleaguered
country. 1) Account for the likes of Duperval, Dorelien and Valmond
and the several lower level military and paramilitary operatives who
had been deported from the US as persecutors and detained by Haitian
authorities. 2) Recognize the “rebellion” and the ensuing period of
occupation itself will likely result in Haitians committing
atrocities against other Haitians and establish investigative
mechanisms to deal with such matters once reasonable security and
stability are reached. 3) Incorporate, to the extent possible, the
ability to investigate and prosecute human rights violations within
the framework of whatever new government is established in Haiti.
These atrocities are a dark but integral part of Haiti’s modern
history. If Haitians are to have any hope of emerging from the evil
and despair that has engulfed their nation for so long, confronting
their own terror monsters with genuine and lasting justice must be
done. Hopefully, the United States and the international community
will help that pitiful land do just that.        

Bill West retired as the Chief of the National Security Section for
the INS in Miami, Florida and is now a consultant for the
Investigative Project, a Washington DC-based counterterrorism
research institute.
.