21638: Esser: Rights abuses seen in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Brattleboro Reformer [Vermont]
http://www.reformer.com

April 30, 2004

Rights abuses seen in Haiti

By JUSTIN MASON
mailto:jmason@reformer.com
Reformer Staff

Shortly after landing in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Vermont resident
Palmer Legare watched a lumbering military plane touch down on the
tarmac, carrying supplies to the multinational troops gathered on the
Caribbean island to maintain peace in the strife-ridden country.

Once Legare entered the city, it quickly became evident to him that
the small Caribbean nation was great lengths away from peace.

The Cabot resident said constant armed patrols by U.S. Marines
instilled a feeling of unease among street dwellers, who live in
constant fear of increasingly deplorable social and political
conditions brought on by the recent unseating of President Jean
Bertrand Aristide.

Following a fact-finding trip -- Legare, a member of a state
citizen's lobbying group called "April6VT" -- is soliciting help from
federal legislators to push for a national and international
investigation into the human rights abuses he perceived while in
Haiti last week.

Along with five other U.S. citizens, Legare and fellow Vermonter Tom
Luce traveled to the ravaged nation to investigate trickling reports
that the newly instituted U.S.-backed government was committing human
rights abuses.

Organized by the Ecumenical Project in Central America and the
Caribbean, the delegation included people from varying backgrounds,
Legare said, including a free-lance journalist from Utah and a clergy
member from New York.

Members of the delegation met with numerous civilians and officials
-- including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and rebel leader Guy
Philippe -- Legare said, which portrayed a clear image of a growing
human rights problem.

"The new government is arresting people and the U.S. force is backing
them up," he said.

Despite being the largest political party in the island republic, the
Lavalas Family Party -- of which Aristide was a member -- has been
excluded from having any representation in the government, Legare
said.

To make matters worse, people thought to be in support of Lavalas are
being systematically rounded up by police forces, while the
multinational coalition -- comprised of nearly 2,600 U.S., Canadian,
French and Chilean troops -- stand by and watch.

"Our government is saying they were opposed to these rebels, these
former paramilitary personnel," he said. "But when you go there and
look around, we're really not doing anything about it."

Many of Aristide's supporters and Lavalas members are in hiding,
since the president fled the nation, Legare said, which has caused
the widespread poverty throughout Haiti to become progressively
worse. Supporters living in fear of the police have been leaving
homes and jobs.

"It's very clear that members and supporters of Aristide's party are
being targeted," he said. "They're being arrested, they're being
beaten, they're being killed."

Violence has been especially prominent in the Belair District of
Port-au-Prince, Legare said, where nightly curfews shut down streets
and police are constantly executing raids to round up Aristide
supporters. Legare met with a teenage boy, who said he had been
wounded by troops from the multi-national force. The boy told Legare
that he was trying to buy candles, when he saw the patrol. Out of
fear, the boy ran and was shot in the back by the troops.

"He almost died because (the troops) closed the streets and he
couldn't get to a hospital," Legare said.

Human rights abuses have also been fomented by the liberation of
criminals from country's jails, Legare said. Talking with citizens,
Legare learned that many of the escaped prisoners were members of the
paramilitary groups and death squads that committed horrific offenses
during the unrest of the 1990s.

"Many of these human rights violators are running around free,
killing people," he said. "There is this big question about why they
are not being arrested."

Each day on the radio, dozens of names of Aristide supporters are
read aloud as people who should be arrested, Legare said. Some
civilians expressed concern about being seen with the delegation for
fear that they be labeled an Aristide supporter, Legare said.

"Just to be a known supporter of Aristide is cause to be arrested or
even something more drastic," he said.

Since returning to the United States this week, Legare has been
lobbying government officials for both a national and international
investigations into the events leading up to Aristide's departure,
along with the human rights abuses that are occurring under the new
administration. Now that U.S. troops have arrived in Haiti, he said
many people have become complacent to the conditions in Haiti.

"There is this perception now (in this country), that because U.S.
troops are there, everything is fine," he said. "But it's really an
urgent crisis situation and people are being killed on a daily basis."

In March, U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., introduced the
Responsibility to Uncover the Truth about Haiti Act, which calls for
an independent bi-partisan committee to investigate U.S. involvement
in the coup d'état.

If passed, the act would establish a 10-member commission -- with
five democrats and five Republicans -- to investigate what role the
U.S. played in the ousting of a democratically elected leader or the
newly established government.

"This bill will offer the opportunity to investigate the long-term
origins of the overthrow of the Haitian government and the impact of
our failure to protect democracy," Lee stated in a press releases.

The bill has 47 co-sponsors, including Rep. Bernard Sanders, I-Vt.,
and has since been referred to the House Committee on International
Relations.

Spokesman Joel Barkin said Sanders supports the bill because there
are too many questions coming out of Haiti without many answers.

"We have serious questions that need to be addressed," he said. "We
think an independent commission is the best way to find out those
answers."
.