20402: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Find the 'Three' human-rights violators (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

  Posted on Mon, Mar. 15, 2004

HAITI


Find the 'Three' human-rights violators

BY WILLIAM WEST


Less than two months ago, the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
deported Jean-Claude Duperval, a former Haitian army general and a U.S.
court-designated human-rights persecutor who was also a fugitive from Haiti.
He was wanted for mass murder stemming from the tyranny imposed on Haitians
by the military regime that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991.

Operation No Safe Haven

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 Col. Carl Dorelien and former Lt. Col. Herbert Valmond, had been
previously deported by the immigration department, and, like Duperval, were
being held in the Haitian National Prison awaiting further judicial
proceedings in Haiti. Until now, that is.

Events in Haiti over the past few weeks make it unclear what the future
holds for the ''Haitian Three'' and nearly a dozen lower-level Haitian
persecutors who were deported over the past three years from South Florida
under what had been the local INS's aggressive and successful
human-rights-persecutor apprehension program. This was the precursor to the
ICE's Operation No Safe Haven at the national level.

The so-called rebels who have allegedly liberated Haiti are mainly former
Haitian army members and operatives of what had been the Front for
Advancement and Progress in Haiti, a Neanderthal paramilitary thug
organization aligned with the corrupt military whose primary mission was to
kidnap, torture and kill political opponents.

These are now the ''liberators'' of a country where Aristide, by almost
everyone's account, was at best incapable of governing anywhere outside the
boundaries of his own presidential palace and at worst not much better than
the dictators he replaced.

Inmates allowed to flee

Reports from Port-au-Prince the day after Aristide fled indicated that
prison guards exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothes and allowed the
inmates to flee; the ''Three'' may have been among those fleeing inmates.
Given the fast-changing situation in Haiti, yesterday's war criminal could
be tomorrow's political leaders, or at least the one pulling the leaders'
strings.

I hope that the developing international security forces will not allow that
to happen; but it is not clear yet really who will be in charge. In the
event that Duperval, Dorelien and Valmond, or some combination, are free and
become aligned with an evolving government, either overtly or behind the
scenes, it could spell disaster for anyone in Haiti who in any way had
crossed them.

That Troika of Terror (now probably free but on the lam) has powerful allies
among the well-armed and well-placed thugs within Haitian society and could
wreak no small amount of havoc. It's important to answer these question:
Where are the ''Three''? What are they doing?

In the current chaos in Haiti, the United States and international forces
should consider these important issues relative to human-rights violators.
They must account for the likes of Duperval, Dorelien and Valmond and the
lower-level military and paramilitary operatives who have been deported from
the United States as persecutors.

Apprehend these evil-doers

>From a U.S. perspective, simply preventing these thugs from reentering the
United States is critical. The international stabilization forces also must
incorporate the ability to investigate and prosecute human-rights violations
within the framework of whatever new government is established in Haiti.

These atrocities are a somber 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, their own terror monsters must be
confronted with genuine and lasting justice. Hopefully the United States and
the international community will help that pitiful land do just that.

William West retired as the chief of the National Security Section for the
INS in Miami and is now a consultant for a counterterrorism research
institute in Washington, D.C.

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