20388: Fenton: Haiti's Murderous Army Reborn (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Anthony Fenton <apfenton@ualberta.ca>

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=5145

ZNet | Haiti

by Jean Charles Moise; Pacific News Service; March 14, 2004

Editor's Note: A mayor from northern Haiti currently in hiding says that the
Haitian army is back in force, shooting people and burning homes. How
could this happen, he asks -- and where are they getting the all the heavy
weaponry?
CAP HAITIAN, Haiti--I am the mayor of Milo, a district of about 50,000
people near Cap Haitian. When I was elected nine years ago, at the age
of 28, I was the youngest to serve in that office in Haiti's modern history.
I've traveled in the United States on speaking tours, telling Americans
about how we were building democracy in Haiti under the Aristide
government. In late February my district came under attack by anti-Aristide
forces and I fled for my life. From where I am now -- hiding in the woods --
I see the old Haitian army is back.
Those they don't kill, they lock up in containers, because they burned
down the jails. The kind of containers you put on ships.
The situation is different here from what I hear about in Port-au-Prince,
where you have the multinational force of American, Canadian, Chilean
soldiers. In Cap Haitian you have the former Haitian military. There are no
police any more, so they are the ones who are law. They come into your
home. They take you, they beat you up, they kill you. They burn down
homes. They do anything they want, because they are the only law in town.
The journalists are in Port-au-Prince, but here in the north no one is
reporting what's going on, that the former Haitian military is killing people.
They are killing about 50 people a day in Cap Haitian. It's happening not
just in the northern department but also in the central plateau, in the
Artibone region.
Can you imagine that on Monday at 2 p.m. the former military declared a
curfew that would start at 4 p.m.? The peasants, many of them are poor
and do not have a radio, so how could they hear of this curfew? So what
happened at 4 p.m.? The former military took to the streets and anyone
they saw on the streets they shot. This is the kind of stuff that is going on.
Can you imagine this?
We have people like myself, mayors and other members of the municipal
government who have had to flee and are now sleeping in the woods, and
have gone to the mountains. We have church members and priests who
have been beaten and whose cars have been destroyed. These people
are also in hiding. We could never have imagined that we would be going
back to this situation that existed before. It is intolerable.
Since this whole thing started I haven't seen my wife and my children. I
have been in hiding. This cannot continue. This is a catastrophe for the
north of Haiti and all the people of Haiti.
One has to ask, why is all of this happening? Is this because we used to
have only 10 public high schools but now we have over 150? Is it because
we made a democracy where people could go in the streets, protest, and
be free to say whatever they want? Is it because black people in the
country now, people who were poor and always kept out of the political life
of the country, they have come out and have been participating in
democracy? Is that why they have unleashed this terror on us? Is that
what we are paying for?
We ask these questions: Is it because the United States blocked
international assistance to Haiti to make people rise up against the
president, but they never did? Is it because people here are continuing to
support their president? Is that why we are getting all this repression? We
have to ask those questions.
We wonder whether it is because the army that used to exist before was
disbanded by President Aristide. Instead of defending the people, that
army used to carry out a war against us. Is it because that army is no
longer there that someone has rearmed it and brought it back to Haiti with
very powerful weapons?
Now the old army is doing what they used to do before, except with more
powerful weapons and with helicopters. They are drowning people in the
sea. That's what going on.
The press is reporting the looting that is taking place in Port au Prince but
they are not reporting about the police stations that were burned and
destroyed here in the north. They are not reporting on the number of
schools that have been destroyed. They are not reporting on the burning
of the airport in Cap Haitian and all the other things that were built under
the government of President Aristide for the Haitian people.
I cannot understand how a group of disbanded military has access to
such sophisticated equipment and heavy weaponry. They have two
helicopters and they have two airplanes. They use the helicopter to
transport their troops and they use them at night with spotlights to look for
people in hiding. They are in the air and they have their troops on the
ground.
These are the questions we ask ourselves as we hide from those with the
guns.
Mayor Jean Charles Moise spoke with PNS contributors Lyn Duff and
Dennis Bernstein via cell phone. The interview originally aired on Pacifica
Radio's Flashpoints show (KPFA FM 94.1 in Berkeley, Calif.). Duff is a
freelance writer who has reported widely on Haiti since 1995. Bernstein is
the executive producer of Flashpoints.