20301: radtimes: Rights violators at large in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Rights violators at large in Haiti

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0403120197mar12,1,2838688.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed

Peace activists fear that ex-inmates will spread terror

By Gary Marx
Tribune foreign correspondent
Published March 12, 2004

HAVANA -- More than a week after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into
exile, human-rights workers and others in Haiti are worried that a handful
of former soldiers convicted of rights violations are on the loose,
threatening to deepen the conflict and undermine whatever rule of law
exists in the impoverished nation.

They include Louis Jodel Chamblain, a former military officer and key rebel
leader who was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for the 1993 murder
of a Haitian businessman and pro-democracy activist.

  A Haitian court also found him responsible for the 1994 slayings of about
25 Aristide supporters in a seaside slum in Gonaives, Haiti's
fourth-largest city.

Hebert Valmond, Jean-Claude Duperval and Carl Dorelien--all former members
of the Haitian military--also were sentenced in absentia to life in prison
for participating in the 1994 killings.

Those three were deported from the United States and were among more than
3,500 inmates released from Haitian prisons on the day of Aristide's
departure, according to human-rights officials in Haiti. The men remain at
large.

Marie Yolene Gilles, assistant program director for the National Coalition
for Haitian Rights, warned that the bloodshed could worsen if those
convicted of gross human-rights violations during the country's last
military government from 1991 to 1994 are not jailed.

"It's very dangerous," she said last week in Port-au-Prince, the capital.
"If something is not done quick from a national or international point of
view, it will be a catastrophe."

Joanne Mariner, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Americas Division,
said her organization sent a letter Wednesday to U.S. Secretary of State
Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld urging the U.S.-led
multinational forces to extend their reach beyond Port-au-Prince in an
effort to improve security.

The letter also asked the officials to ensure that Chamblain, Duperval,
Valmond, Dorelien and several others convicted of human-rights violations
are taken into custody, arguing that allowing them to remain free
contributes to a climate of impunity and violence.

"They need to face justice," Mariner said in a telephone interview.

As part of a more aggressive stance, the 1,600 U.S. Marines attached to a
multinational peacekeeping force have begun to take weapons from any armed
Haitians they find on patrol. But Judith Trunzo, a spokeswoman for the U.S.
Embassy in Haiti, said that the U.S. lacks the authority to arrest
human-rights violators.

Daniel Erikson, a Haiti expert at the Inter-American Dialogue, a
Washington-based think tank, said U.S. policymakers would prefer limiting
American involvement in Haiti but said such an approach would prove
ineffective in bringing security to the country.

"While there is great preference for the Band-Aid approach, you can't
escape the reality that Haiti requires long-term nation building," Erikson
said in a telephone interview.

The issue of how to handle the notorious former soldiers now free in Haiti
is one of the issues facing human-rights officials in the wake of
Aristide's abrupt and controversial departure.

In an interview this week, Gilles said she is still trying to determine how
many Haitians have been killed in the ongoing conflict pitting Aristide
loyalists against the now-victorious rebels and their allies, including
former soldiers and armed civilians.

Her work, she said, has been hampered by gasoline shortages that prevent
her from traveling around the country to visit morgues, slum areas and
other locations where victims are often found.

Unofficial figures put the death toll for the 5-week conflict at more than
300. But bodies still appear almost daily along city streets and in other
locations.

Gerard Latortue, Haiti's new prime minister, has said that disarming
militants is a priority. But there are concerns that Latortue may name a
new security chief supportive of reconstituting the once-feared Haitian
Armed Forces, who ousted Aristide in a 1991 coup and were disbanded after
he was returned to power by the U.S. in 1994.

Human-rights officials in Haiti have called on the transitional government
being assembled by Latortue to quickly reopen the courts and arrest
Chamblain and other human-rights violators to prevent them from regaining
power.

.