21350: Severe: Cnn.com article on Haitian Justice System (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Constantin Severe <csevere@hotmail.com>

Joanne Mariner, FindLaw Columnist
Special to CNN.com
Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Posted: 1:43 PM EDT (1743 GMT)



Haiti's new government has underscored its commitment to justice. "The fight
against impunity will be a top priority for us," said interim Justice
Minister Bernard Gousse when I met him a few weeks ago. "We're planning to
investigate human rights abuses, killings, and the pilfering of the state
treasury."

The government has already arrested former officials implicated in serious
abuses, including the previous government's interior minister and a former
parliamentary deputy. It has also announced plans to investigate former
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, whom it condemns as the architect
of efforts to repress the country's political opposition.

Haiti's need for fair and impartial justice is clear. The country has long
been characterized by what the United Nations' independent expert on Haiti
once called a "culture of impunity": a deep public mistrust in the justice
system, and a tradition of serious crimes going unpunished. Against this
backdrop, the current government's stated pledge to make justice a priority
is enormously encouraging.

Yet, up to now, there has been a worrying one-sidedness to the new
government's efforts. Its eagerness to prosecute officials of the previous
government stands in stark contrast to its apparent indifference to the
record of other known perpetrators of grave human rights crimes.

For justice to be fair, it must be evenhanded and apolitical. Here, the
signs to date are discouraging.

Justice and the Raboteau Massacre

The current government is focused on prosecuting the crimes of the Aristide
government, some of which were extremely serious. But even more systematic
and widespread abuses were committed under the de facto military government
that ruled Haiti from 1991 to 1994, a period that the current government
seems ready to ignore.

Two leaders of the armed rebellion that led to President Aristide's recent
ouster are among the human rights criminals of the military era. The more
notorious of the two is Louis Jodel Chamblain, the apparent second in
command to current rebel commander Guy Philippe.

Chamblain -- a founder of the violent paramilitary group known as the
Revolutionary Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress (FRAPH), which was
active during the last year of military rule -- is responsible for killings,
torture and other abuses. He was convicted in absentia and sentenced to life
imprisonment for the 1993 murder of Antoine Izméry, a well-known
pro-democracy activist, and for involvement in the 1994 Raboteau massacre.

Another member of the insurgent forces with a history of violent abuses is
Jean Pierre Baptiste, better known as Jean Tatoune. Tatoune, a local FRAPH
leader during the military government, was also sentenced to life
imprisonment for the Raboteau massacre. He escaped from prison in Gonaives
in August 2002, during a mass prison break, and later joined the armed
insurgency.


Although at least three thousand civilians are believed to have been killed
during the time of Haiti's military government, very few of these crimes
were ever brought to justice. The most important effort to address past
abuses was the prosecution of the April 1994 attack and massacre in the
pro-Aristide shantytown of Raboteau.

Sixteen defendants, including Tatoune, were tried and convicted of
responsibility for the massacre, in which some 20 people are believed to
have been killed. Another 37 defendants were convicted in absentia,
including General Raoul Cédras, the head of the military government,
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, one of FRAPH's founders, and Jodel Chamblain.

The Killings in Saint Marc

The town of Saint Marc, an hour or so south of the rebel stronghold of
Gonaives, was the site of a series of vicious crimes during the last month
of Aristide's presidency. The new government has already arrested at least
five people for the killings in Saint Marc, including the former minister of
interior -- the highest Aristide government official to be arrested to date.
The government's focus on Saint Marc suggests that it may view these
prosecutions as the exemplary trial of the Aristide government, comparable
to the role played by the Raboteau trial for the crimes of the military era.

During almost all of February, Saint Marc was terrorized by a violent
pro-government death squad known as Bale Wouze, or Clean Sweep. Bale Wouze
was led by Amanus Mayette, a former parliamentary deputy belonging to
Aristide's party whose term had expired in January.

On February 7, two days after the rebel take-over of Gonaives, a
lightly-armed anti-government group known as Ramicos overran the Saint Marc
police station. The government soon sent in police SWAT team reinforcements,
known as CIMO, and retook control of the town. Within days, the Bale Wouze
and CIMO, working together, attacked the neighborhood of La Scierie, known
as a Ramicos stronghold. They were heavily armed, carrying M-14s and M-1s,
and wore black masks. They poured diesel fuel on houses associated with
Ramicos members and burned down close to a dozen of them. They also burned
several people to death.

One victim was a young carpenter named Kenol St. Gilles. On February 11,
when Bale Wouze attacked la Scierie, Kenol was on his way home for lunch.
His mother was visiting the home of a local pastor when news came that Kenol
had been shot in the leg. Kenol's mother went to find Kenol and carried him
back to the pastor's house. The pastor's wife was a nurse, and was going to
try to treat Kenol's bullet wounds.

The men who had shot Kenol searched the neighborhood house-by-house looking
for him. They found Kenol in the pastor's house and dragged him down the
road to a depot that they had set on fire. Kenol's mother ran after them,
hiding, and saw two men throw Kenol into the burning building. "One was
holding his hands and one his feet," she later described. "They just tossed
him into the fire."

Human Rights Watch visited Saint Marc in late March and documented a number
of vicious killings, including the murder of Kenol St. Gilles. We also
learned of the public lynching of seven Bale Wouze members in the immediate
wake of Aristide's flight into exile.

Of Killers and Freedom Fighters

Amanus Mayette, the former head of Bale Wouze, fled Saint Marc when Aristide
left the country and was later arrested in the Haitian capital of
Port-au-Prince. He now faces trial for the Saint Marc murders, along with
former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, and three notorious Bale Wouze
members who were captured not long after Aristide's departure.

But whereas the government has vowed to investigate the Saint Marc killings
and prosecute them fairly, it has treated abuses from the military era very
differently. Indeed, in late March, Haiti's interim Prime Minister Gerard
Latortue publicly lauded the rebel forces -- whose leaders include both
Chamblain and Tatoune -- calling them "freedom fighters." Haiti's interim
Justice Minister has even raised the possibility of granting pardons to
Chamblain and Tatoune, though in other statements to the press he has
suggested that the government is simply waiting for the right moment to deal
with them.

Given the de facto power of the rebel forces, and the interim government's
relative weakness, there is no doubt that it would take real political
courage to attempt to arrest Chamblain and Tatoune now. But every day that
those two notorious killers are allowed to walk around free, armed, and
dangerous, is another day in which the failings of Haitian justice are on
display.


In the meantime, the legacy of the Raboteau trial is slowly crumbling. A few
weeks ago, in another sign of the times, the chief judge of the Raboteau
trial was attacked and severely beaten. He said that his attacker threatened
to kill him for his role in convicting Chamblain.

_________________________________________________________________
Tax headache? MSN Money provides relief with tax tips, tools, IRS forms and
more! http://moneycentral.msn.com/tax/workshop/welcome.asp