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21633: This Week in Haiti 22:08 04/28/2004 (fwd)
"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at <editor@haitiprogres.com>.
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HAITI PROGRES
"Le journal qui offre une alternative"
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
April 28 - May 4, 2004
Vol. 22, No. 8
MOCKING JUSTICE:
DEATH SQUAD LEADER NEGOTIATES A WHITEWASH
On April 22, 1994, during the darkest days of the first coup
against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, paramilitary gunmen and
soldiers chased down and executed a score of men in the seaside
shanty town of Raboteau in Haiti's northwestern city of Gonaïves.
Dozens of men and women were also beaten and wounded in the
attack.
Ten years later, during the second coup against Aristide, one of
the masterminds of that massacre turned himself over to a de
facto government which calls him a "freedom fighter" and asked
for a new trial.
In November 2000, Louis Jodel Chamblain, the vice-president of
the notorious paramilitary death-squad FRAPH (Front for the
Advancement and Progress of Haiti), was convicted in absentia by
a Haitian jury to life in prison for his role as operations
commander of the paramilitaries which carried out the Raboteau
massacre (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 18, No. 39, 12/13/00).
At the time, Chamblain was living in Santo Domingo, Dominican
Republic and plotting the overthrow of the yet to be re-elected
and inaugurated Aristide. In February 2004, Chamblain entered
Haiti from the DR at the head of a tiny column of Dominican-
backed "rebels" and joined with another former Haitian Army
officer, Guy Philippe, in occupying the cities of Gonaïves and
Cap Haïtien with a handful of men after scaring off the largely
complicit or unarmed Haitian police force.
Despite his usefulness as a symbol to terrorize and immobilize
the Haitian people, Chamblain was something of an embarrassment
to Washington. They continued to hold him and the other "rebels"
at arm's length, at least when the cameras were rolling.
But on April 22, 2004, in a show carefully orchestrated with de
facto Justice Minister Bernard Gousse and de facto Haitian
National Police chief Léon Charles, Chamblain held a press
conference at the luxury Kinam Hotel across the street from the
Péionville police station.
"Neither myself, commander Guy Philippe, nor the other commanders
of the revolution, have ever been afraid of Jean Bertrand
Aristide," Chamblain tearfully declared to the press. "I was
armed with courage to carry out the revolution which has led to
the freeing of the Haitian students, the Haitian intellectual
class and Haiti as a whole. And since I have been subject to
several charges, I am girding myself with the same courage to
present myself to the whole world with a conscience in peace and
hands clean and empty... I am willing to turn myself in so as to
give a chance for the construction of the democracy for which I
fight and for the establishment of justice in the country. These
are the reasons for my sacrifice today."
Chamblain had met with Gousse and Charles the previous day to
arrange his theatrical "surrender." According to his lawyer
Stanley Gaston, Chamblain's gesture "automatically annuls" the
ruling handed down in 2000. The Haitian constitution allows
retrials for fifteen years after an in absentia verdict.
"I think he sees the opportunity to get a sympathetic judge to
dismiss the charges against him," said Brian Concannon, a U.S.
lawyer who advised the Haitian legal team that prosecuted
Chamblain in the Raboteau trial. "Also, as a convicted criminal
at the top echelons of the current de facto government, he is
embarrassing to that government and to the U.S.. Rather than get
rid of a criminal, they are trying to make the criminal look like
he's not a criminal."
De facto Justice Minister Gousse was clearly satisfied that the
scene played out as scripted. "Security involves not only
repression, but it's also a matter of persuasion, a matter of
trust in the legal system," he declared. After the press
conference, Charles with a squad of policemen, accompanied
Chamblain across the street to the Péionville jail, where he
will likely enjoy deluxe accommodations.
Pro-coup "human rights" groups, like the Ecumenical Center for
Human Rights of Jean Claude Bajeux, applauded Chamblain's gesture
as an act of wisdom.
But the September 30 Foundation, the most persistent defender of
1991 coup victims, said that Chamblain had simply struck a deal
with the government of de facto Prime Minister Géard Latortue.
"Ten years after Raboteau, we do not understand how the legal
apparatus is negotiating with a criminal against whom justice has
already pronounced a sentence," said Wilson Méilien, a
foundation spokesman.
In September 1995, Chamblain was also convicted in absentia to
life imprisonment for his involvement in the Sep. 11, 1993 murder
of democracy activist Antoine Izméry.
Another victim of FRAPH under Chamblain's leadership was Haitian
Justice Minister Guy Malary, who was ambushed and machine-gunned
to death with his body-guard and a driver on October 14, 1993.
According to an October 28, 1993 CIA Intelligence Memorandum
obtained by the Center for Constitutional Rights: "FRAPH members
Jodel Chamblain, Emmanuel Constant, and Gabriel Douzable met with
an unidentified military officer on the morning of 14 October to
discuss plans to kill Malary." Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, the
president of FRAPH, has enjoyed political asylum in the U.S.
since 1996 and is living in Queens, NY.
There are reports that Jean Jean-Baptiste, known as Jean Tatoune,
will also seek to overturn his conviction in the Raboteau trial.
But, as Amnesty International has noted, he is not eligible for
retrial since he was present in the courtroom for his trial in
2000.
Tatoune escaped from prison in August 2002 and was one of the
leaders of the destabilization campaign against Haiti's
constitutional government.
Concannon says that Chamblain's move "wasn't a surprise" to him
and his team of human rights lawyers. "We actually expected that
as soon as there was an undemocratic government in place that
these guys would come in to try to get the convictions removed.
But these cases took a long time to build up, and a lot of people
sacrificed and worked for six years for the Raboteau case to go
to trial. For it to be erased with the quick pen stroke of a
judge will obviously be a disappointment for the victims and for
everybody that worked on the case."
Concannon also outlined four reasons why "under the current
circumstances, any case against [Chamblain] will be a travesty.
First, the victims are in hiding because his allies have been
terrorizing them. Second, the de facto Justice Minister publicly
said earlier this week that Chamblain has nothing to hide, which
makes it clear that the Justice Minister intends to do a
whitewash. Third, the judge in the Raboteau case was beaten up by
Chamblain's people on March 30, so obviously you're not going to
have a judge that will follow the case seriously. And finally,
the house of the Raboteau trial's lead prosecutor was burned down
in February. So it's unlikely that you're going to have a zealous
prosecutor take this case."
PREMIERE OF THE AGRONOMIST ON LONG ISLAND
After the showing of Jonathon Demme's new film The Agronomist on
Saturday, May 1 @ 7:10pm at the Cinema Arts Centre in Huntington,
Long Island, there will be a discussion with Kim Ives, a
filmmaker and journalist with Haïti Progrès, and Margareth
Dominique, a community activist. Both are co-hosts of WBAI
Radio's Haiti: The Struggle Continues, heard at 99.5 FM in New
York Saturdays from 3:00 to 4:00 p.m.
For more information, contact the CINEMA ARTS CENTRE, 423 Park
Avenue, Huntington, NY 11743. Phone: 631-423-7611.
All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.
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