21517: Esser: Re: 21507: (Chamberlain) re: 21481: Esser: Plan Haiti Emerges (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

D. Esser torx@joimail.com

The National Labor Guild (NLG) delegation, of which Tom Griffin was a
part of, reports:

<The Director admitted that 800 bodies were "dumped and buried"
by morgue on Sunday, March 7, 2004, and another 200 bodies dumped
on Sunday, March 28, 2004. The "usual" amount dumped is less
than 100 per month.  The bodies are taken to Titanyen, [a
desolate dump] north of the capital, and buried in a mass grave.>

Anthony Fenton writes:

<Recently, the National Lawyers Guild's Tom Griffin
provided an eyewitness account of horrific human rights
abuses. Among numerous things, his delegation witnessed:>


Since having been educated of the importance of semantics recently, I
am happy to tell you "to witness" in the english language means also
to give or bear testimony or being able to do so. Fenton doesn't
write the delegation "eye-witnessed" the bodies or their condition,
which they didn't. And so, according to standard usage of this word,
Fenton is right in stating that the NLG delegation is a witness or
witnessed atrocities, because they collected information.
Since they got statements of several eyewitnesses that supplied
corroborating accounts they to can serve as a witness. To give an
example: a police officer arriving at the szene of a crime after the
fact but having collected the information of eyewitnesses to the
crime is still considered a witness in a court of law as well as in
the normal use of the word, no? Here are some definitions, from a
legal point of view: witness: to furnish evidence or proof of; to act
as witness of and to give evidence. Yes those mortuary worker
statements are evidence of events and were witnessed by the NLG. Of
course I am not a legal professional, but I can write and given the
heightened interest in semantics are also able to distinguish if a
word is used correctly or not. Now, I am keen to hear why an authors
choice of words is more interesting than accounts from various
sources that mass killings have (are?) taking place in Haiti under
the noses of the foreign forces and the de facto government. Anthony
Fenton's choice of words is definitely better (and he did not twist
any report), than that of the NCHR, who would like us to believe that
genocide has taken place in St. Marc.
.