21523: Esser: One Murderer Behind Bars - But for How Long? (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Inter Press Service News Agency
http://www.ipsnews.net

April 23, 2004

One Murderer Behind Bars - But for How Long?
by Jane Regan

When alleged death squad leader and rebel commander Louis Jodel
Chamblain handed himself over to authorities this week, the number of
gun-toting criminals on Haiti's streets and hillsides dropped by one.

PETION-VILLE, Haiti, Apr 23 (IPS) - When alleged death squad leader
and rebel commander Louis Jodel Chamblain handed himself over to
authorities this week, the number of gun-toting criminals on Haiti's
streets and hillsides dropped by one.

But human rights observers are not overly optimistic.

With armed groups ruling many parts of the country, a nearly
non-existent police force, an antiquated justice system based on
Napoleonic Code and gross injustices and a society divided by sharp
class and political differences, one more man behind bars probably
will not change the situation much, they say.

In the north, a group calling itself the "Kosovo Army" ransoms people
and has its own jail. In other cities and towns, members of the
Haitian National Front rebel army and scores of armed thugs who
joined them after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Feb. 29 ouster
occupy police stations or intersections.

 From a force of 7,000, the notoriously corrupt and brutal Haitian
National Police (PNH) corps has dwindled to only about 1,400 men and
women. When enrolment for the PNH academy opened this week, a young
man was trampled to death and almost two dozen others injured in the
melee at the front door as officers snuck friends and paying clients
in through the back.

Earlier this month, former Haitian army top commander and now
Minister of Interior, Herard Abraham, surprised rights groups when he
announced he will accept former soldiers into the crippled force.

Aristide dismantled the Haitian Armed Forces in 1995. A tool of the
Duvalier regime (1957-86) and the post-Duvalier dictatorships it was
responsible for generations of murders, coups and repression.
Nevertheless, Abraham said that once ex-soldiers have been vetted and
trained, "they will be integrated into the police".

Today, the U.S.-led multinational force of some 3,600 men and women
does little more than carry out occasional patrols, and these in only
parts of the country. As of last week, only about 150 weapons had
been collected in its "disarmament" efforts, which many Haiti experts
call vital to the country's future. Most of the weapons were rusty
and dysfunctional, journalists observed.

The 3,000 prisoners the Front released from the country's jails
remain free. Murders, kidnappings, hold-ups and rapes are reported
almost every day country-wide. This week the United Nation's
Children's Fund (UNICEF) said Haiti's children have been severely
affected by the recent crisis and violence, and that some 2,000 of
them are living on the streets of the capital Port-au-Prince.

Most of Haiti's cities and towns are running virtually on their own.
The Aristide-appointed mayors and councils have evaporated, perhaps
fearing reprisals for their actions while in power. The doors of most
of the country's courthouses are also locked shut. A number of them
were ransacked in the days leading up to Aristide's departure.

"It's clear that this government doesn't control the national
territory," Eliphaite St Pierre, general secretary of the Platform of
Haitian Human Rights Organisations (POHDH), told IPS. "And so far,
the government has not shown us that it has any kind of different
vision, not for disarmament or public security or justice".

Amidst some pomp and circumstance and a great deal of media attention
Thursday, Chamblain turned himself into the police exactly 10 years
after Haitian soldiers and members of the paramilitary death squad
FRAPH (the so-called Front for the Advancement of Progress of the
Haitian People) attacked Raboteau, the poor seaside slum of the
northern city of Gonaives, killing somewhere between eight and two
dozen people.

FRAPH, which rights investigators and journalists later linked to the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and to numerous cases of
arson, rape and murder, terrorised and killed supporters of
then-President Aristide in 1993 and 1994, following the 1991 coup.

Chamblain, who says the organisation was a purely political group,
was FRAPH's Number Two man. He and its leader, Emmanuel "Toto"
Constant, fled Haiti when Aristide returned in 1994 -- Constant to
New York, where he remains today, and Chamblain to the neighbouring
Dominican Republic.

Chamblain was eventually tried and convicted in absentia for the
"Raboteau massacre" and for the murder of businessman and Aristide
supporter Antoine Izmery. He returned to Haiti this year to help
command the rag-tag rebel army that shot and killed at least a dozen
people as it took over half of the country's police headquarters last
February.

Despite the convictions, Chamblain -- as well as other convicted
rights abusers and the over 3,000 prisoner rebels released from the
country's prisons -- spent the last two months touring the country,
giving interviews, calling for the reestablishment of the Haitian
Armed Forces and even meting out justice at impromptu "trials".

During the same period, new Haitian Minister of Justice Bernard
Gousse arrested or issued travel bans for dozens of ex-Aristide
officials and expelled scores of officers from the police. Among
those behind bars is ex-Minister of the Interior Jocelerme Privert.

Groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the local
National Coalition for Haitian Rights all raised their voices against
the arrests, condemning the obvious double standard.

Perhaps that explains the choreographed and reporter-friendly event
Thursday. Dressed to the nines in a grey suit and seated before a
roomful of local and foreign reporters, Chamblain cried as he noted
he was performing an "heroic act".

"I am handing myself over to be a prisoner so that Haiti has a chance
for the real democracy that I am fighting for, for the real justice
for which I have always fought," said Chamblain, tears welling up in
his eyes.

Guy Philippe, commander-in-chief of the Front, had his hands on
Chamblain's shoulders, but he was crying so hard he had to leave the
room.

Claiming that a fair trial would vindicate him, Chamblain called on
others -- including officials and members of Aristide's Lavalas
Family Party suspected in rights violations and corruption -- to turn
themselves in. He then walked across the room, gave his gun to
another Front member, was fingerprinted and took up residence in a
jail cell.

Minister of Justice Bernard Gousse was on hand at the police station.
After the lock on the old cell door clicked shut, he spoke to
reporters, praising Chamblain's "good and noble decision".

"Justice will be done, no matter what camp one is from," said Gousse,
who added that a judge will open new investigations and if evidence
is found, will try Chamblain all over again.

Standing outside the jail, Philippe said he disagreed with
Chamblain's decision, adding that he hoped police would now arrest
Aristide's former prime minister, Yvon Neptune, and other members of
the Lavalas party, whom he said are implicated in gross human rights
violations.

While they cautiously applauded Chamblain's gesture, many rights
observers in Haiti and abroad are fearful he will be a free man soon.
In both murder cases for which he was convicted, Chamblain was
accused of being behind the crimes, but not present at the scenes of
the killings.

"If Chamblain is not tried, or is tried and found innocent, it would
be a catastrophe and would encourage impunity in the country," Pierre
Esperance, director of the National Coalition of Haitian Rights, a
member of the POHDH, told IPS.

FRAPH, he added, was implicated in many barbarous acts, including the
October 2003 murder of Minister of Justice Guy Malary.

Esperance added that he hoped the country would not witness a "comedy
of justice", noting that while the justice system is severely
crippled, "there are some honest judges".

At the same time, he said, many arrests are needed of people
implicated in crimes allegedly linked to the Aristide administration,
including the Dec. 5, 2003 attack on a state university dean, the
infamous December 2002 murder of three brothers, allegedly by police
officers, and the destruction of a number of private radio station
antennae and equipment early this year.

"There are many, many arrests that need to take place," Esperance said.

According to St Pierre, "the underlying problem is, what kind of
justice system to we want? Justice for who?"

"The country's social actors need to force this government to hand
out real justice," he added. "We need to get them to pose the
question differently."
.