21140: Benodin: THE HAYTIAN BUTCHERY (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

THE HAYTIAN BUTCHERY

Additional Details of the Horrible Scenes Being Enacted by President
Hippolyte's Order.

The Former Minister of Finance. of the Republic Shot Down by Soldiers.

A Fleet Ordered to Port-au-Prince by the French Minister in Hayti.

From: The Cleveland Leader, Cleveland, Ohio. June 10, 1891. Page 1.

NEW YORK, June 9. -Port-au-Prince correspondence relative to the recent
massacre there by Hippolyte is as follows: Never before were seen so strange
measures taken for the "maintenance of order." The order of the President,
repeated by his subordinates, seems to have been this: "Arrest and shoot
everybody that you find in the streets."
Consequently we could see people flying in all direction to their houses,
while soldiers of the guard of the line and of the police in utter disorder
and without commanders ran right and left, and in all directions except of
course toward the prison and the arsenal pointing their guns at people on
the street, firing at random or for the satisfaction of personal revenge, or
the rivalries of caste, in all seemingly for the glory of having to say that
they had killed somebody. In the space of a few moments we witnessed only a
few paces from the residence of Mr. Preston who was for seventeen years the
Minister Hayti at Washington, the murder of his nephew, a soldier of the
white guard, who was shot down by a Negro policeman. Two men were arrested
and shot, one because he had a gun (he was a soldier of the national guard,
and was running to the defense of the palace) the other because he had no
gun (he was an enemy because he was not armed for the so called defense);
and, horrible spectacle, the minister of finance of the former government,
reputed to be the most honorable and peaceable man of the country, was
arrested as a suspect while he was surrounded by his eight children, was
conducted to the palace to give information if he had any, and was shot in
the back by the six Negroes who escorted him, at the very moment when he was
saluting the chancellor of the French legation. For several hours they
continued to shoot down people who were displeasing to the government or
disliked by this or that chief including an inoffensive Frenchman whose
Haytian nephew had been taken among the rebels and also shot. We see at the
close of the nineteenth century a nation which figures upon the map of the
world can arrest a peaceable man in his own home and shoot him down without
any form of trial. The French fleet called for by the minister will be sent
on, they say. But will that bring the murdered man back to life, and must we
still permit such people to figure upon the list of nations?