22856: radtimes: Human Rights Horrors in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Human Rights Horrors in Haiti

http://globalresearch.ca/articles/FEN407A.html

by Anthony Fenton
28  July 2004

     On July 19th, the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
released a nineteen-page report: 'Human Rights Violations in Haiti:
February ­ May 2004.' [1] One is immediately struck by the copious
documentation and graphic detail of the report, and this is, according to
the IJDH, "only a tiny fraction of the violations committed during the
period covered." Information is difficult to come by because "many victims
or relatives are in hiding", and many have a "fear of further retaliation."
Additionally, the areas under the control of the "rebels"[note
US-supported], have largely been inaccessible, with the coverage relegated
to Port au Prince and the Central Plateau. Perhaps the most telling detail
is the commonality amongst victims:

     "With the exception of four victims and for those whom it has not been
possible to obtain their identity, interviewees have reported that the
victims were supporters of Aristide or Haiti's former constitutional
government."

     The report makes note that "Morgue employees from the General Hospital
in Port au Prince have revealed that 800 bodies on Sunday, March 7, and
another 200 bodies on Sunday, March 28 were dumped and buried in a mass
grave at Titanyen. These figures are unusual for such a short period of
time [100 is normal for a month]."

     Throughout the report are color photographs of mutilated bodies piled
up in the morgue on May 20th, and of several people, such as Robert Mirlat,
who had "his feet amputated and deep wounds inflicted on his left thigh."
Mirlat's family was not permitted to see the body.

     Roosevelt Rousseau "a partisan of President Aristide and member of a
popular organization" is shown, having been "shot 8 times and killed while
he was sitting outside his house with his family by 6 members of an armed
gang called Base D'Enfer."

     Perhaps the most gruesome photo shows a decapitated Junior Saintilles,
who, with his brother Reynold, was "kidnapped at night by a group of armed
men from the house they were hiding in…When the bodies were found, both
heads were missing…Among those who came to kidnap Reynold and Junior were
former soldiers…"

     The list of horrific violence goes on and on; 20 people are named as
missing and presumed dead, and another 72 are named as having been
confirmed dead. In most cases, the circumstances of death are described.
Sometimes they are vague, such as the events of March 12th, forever etched
in the minds of Haitians as the Belair Massacre. 18-year old Louis Frantzy
and 30-year old Rony Ippolyte were killed by US Marines in Belair "where
the majority of residents support President Aristide." These deaths were
actually reported in the mainstream media. What wasn't reported was that
"on that night several other persons were killed and their bodies taken
away in black body bags ­ only those of Frantzy and Ippolyte were recovered
and hidden." The corporate media referred to an "estimated 11 other people"
who were said to have been killed, according to "eyewitnesses", but this
lead has to date not been followed up on by a single Associated Press,
Reuters, or otherwise corporate "journalist".

     Recently, the Director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights,
Pierre Esperrance, told me that his office had confirmed 4 deaths in Belair
on March 12th. Where were these 2 other bodies and why wasn't this reported
by the corporate media? Esperrance didn't seem to know, since his office
refused to investigate the massacre until a month later, despite the fact
that everyone in the area knew about it. Many people from all sides of the
political spectrum confirmed that this massacre took place, that
"international forces" led a night-time military operation, equipped with
APC's and night-vision goggles and automatic weapons, bringing with them
large trucks or ambulances to haul away the bodies of their victims.
Lavalas militants confirmed many of these details during an April 2nd
interview in Belair. All told, anywhere between 35-65 people are believed
to have been slaughtered by occupying forces on March 12th.

     Elderly men and women are amongst the Aristide supporters murdered, as
are young women, such as Momeline Milate, 29, "a mother of a 10 year old
child." Momeline "was outside her house and selling gasoline when she was
shot 3 times and killed by unidentified armed and hooded men driving a pickup."

     Pierre Esperrance is deeply complicit in the cover-up of Lavalas
persecution. When I spoke to him he actually said "I can tell you right now
that there are no political prisoners in Haiti." This is the same person
whose office walls were adorned with anti-Aristide propaganda when the
National Lawyers Guild met with him in April. Sadly, though not
surprisingly, the NCHR is treated as though it is a legitimate human rights
organization by the occupying forces, Human Rights Watch, the OAS, CARICOM,
and Reporters without Borders, among others. In reality, Esperrance should
be behind bars.

     One of the U.S.-based anti-democracy groups, the Haiti "Democracy"
Project [HDP], relies on the NCHR, regularly posting their skewed reports
on their "bipartisan" website. The HDP is a Brookings-Institution spawned
group, and has long-supported the "opposition" in Haiti, and one of its
principle founders is long time democracy-loather and coup-backer Reginald
Boulos. The HDP has actively taken part in the censorship of human rights
reports, such as that of the National Lawyers Guild, which they erased [on
April 28th] from their website, calling into question its credibility,
suggesting that the NLG went down to Haiti with an agenda, and
predetermined conclusions. Basically, the HDP deplored the fact that the
NLG reported the truth, such as coming across a pile of the remains of
between 40 and 60 people, "where the bodies had been burned and pigs were
seen [and photographed] eating the remains off some bones lying on the
ground."[2]

     If the IJDH report 'goes public', that is, if it is not suppressed
like every other credible report out of Haiti since February 29th, it will
be extremely difficult to sustain the official "it wasn't a coup, Aristide
resigned" lie of the US, Canadian, and French governments, who are the most
heavily implicated in the plot to overthrow Aristide going back to 2000.[3]

     The official position has it that the May 2000 elections were "deeply
flawed" and culminated in a "popular uprising" that eventually forced
Aristide to "resign". The November 2000 Presidential elections are also
seen as flawed on this basis, "boycotted" as they were by the "opposition",
who, according to USAID Gallup polls, only enjoyed approximately 8% of
popular support at the time.

     The May 2000 elections were not flawed and neither were the
Presidential elections. Out of over 7000 positions, a mere eight were
disputed, seven of which involved Lavalas candidates. The dispute,
importantly, had nothing to do with the election process to the extent that
they were deemed "free and fair" without any significant violence or
disruption. The dispute was over the process of tabulation, which should
have seen these eight seats go to a runoff vote. Desperate for anything
that might cast dispersion on the overwhelmingly popular Lavalas party, and
to bolster their destabilization efforts, the "opposition" with help from
their 'friends of Haiti', proceeded to blow this minor instance out of
proportion. The head of the CEP [Provisional Electoral Council], Leon
Manus, was evidently in on the destabilization plan, as he was reportedly
involved in the October 17th attempt - by seven School of the Americas
trained paramilitaries, including Guy Philippe - to overthrow President
Preval before the November elections.[4]

     On October 26, 2000, leader of the National People's Party, Benjamin
Dupuy reported that:

     "The coup d'etat was a meeting that was held in the private residence
of the military attaché of the US Embassy…It is certain that…the CIA
established some bad elements…as they did with Toto Constant…So, the
objective of the coup d'etat of these men was to establish a
government…that would be headed by Olivier Nadal, Leon Manus, Jean-Claude
Fignole and Guy Philippe." [Haiti's Radio Metropole]

     Nadal has been involved in previous massacres of peasants, as well as
backing the coup and making up a significant part of the monied classes in
Haiti. Manus "fled Haiti" after the contrived run-off debacle that could
otherwise have been easily resolved, just as these issues are in any other
democracy when minor irregularities occur.

     Philippe went on to make several other coup attempts; each time, he
would flee to the Dominican Republic [who repeatedly refused to extradite
him], to Panama, or to Ecuador. In every instance [there were several], the
Dominican Republic would free him, knowing that he had committed several
murders [such as in Belladere, 2002], and broken many other laws. From as
high up the chain of command as possible, Philippe enjoyed a certain kind
of immunity from prosecution and was in fact, according to retired
Dominican Army General Noble Espejo, incorporated along with several other
Haitian paramilitaries, into the Dominican army, and was funded and trained
accordingly. This took place with the knowledge and complicity of the US
Embassy in the Dominican.[5]

     The white largely non-Haitian elites [who control most of the economy]
knew going into November 2000 that an Aristide lanslide victory was a
foregone conclusion. Therefore, all of their energy had to be directed
toward undermining the election in the eyes of the "international
community", and with the support of the 'colonial arm' OAS. In spite of the
opposition's most devious efforts, over 60% of the population cast a vote
in the Presidential election, ignoring the "boycott", with over 90% voting
for Aristide. Even a 2002 USAID-commissioned [and leaked] Gallup poll shows
that over 60% of the populace still overwhelmingly supported Aristide. In
any case, since the coup, both the US and Canadian embassies have stated
that if elections were held today, Lavalas would win.[6] This is why
Lavalas has been excluded from the electoral process as overseen by the
Puppet Latortue regime, and this is why over 7000 [mainly Lavalas] public
officials were summarily fired and forced into hiding after February 29th.

     Several unsuccessful coup attempts later, in 2003 Canada took the lead
on the final plans for Aristide's overthrow, now that the international
corporate media had done a marvellous job of demonizing Aristide and making
Haiti look like a "basket case". [7] At this time the US was busy preparing
for another war on Iraq after having re-destroyed Afghanistan in the wake
of 9/11. Canada and France were both posturing as though they were morally
superior for not participating in Iraq meanwhile they were planning an
intervention in Haiti, "pre-emptively" mending the fences that they were
appearing to be burning over Iraq. It isn't yet clear what caused the stall
in the plan to overthrow Aristide before Janaury 1st [as announced by
Canada's Denis Paradis in the March 15th edition of L'Actualite], but the
plan was carried out only two months later.

     The systematic process of demonizing Aristide, staging several coup
attempts that functioned to make the government look unstable, along with
the well-orchestrated complicity of the OAS and the rest of the "colonial
community", laid the groundwork for a full-on denial in the aftermath. It
is likely that as many people have died since the end of February as died
in the three year CIA-supported military dictatorship that overthrew
Aristide the first time, and it is many of the same people carrying out the
atrocities.

     The posture of denial is made more effective by the ensuing 'moral
justification', which allows everyone to collectively suppress the guilt
they feel knowing that they have contributed to these thousands of deaths.
Haiti was a "failed state", and it was the responsibility of the
"international community" to intervene; this was the morally 'responsible'
thing to do. Never mind that Haiti's "failure" was contingent upon the
"success" of the Haitian elite, wealthy Diaspora members, and the rest of
the colonial lot to destabilize Haiti. To describe this perverse hypocrisy
as 'Orwellian' does not do this situation justice, for impunity knows no
justice.

     On July 15th, Haitian author and political activist Jean Saint-Vil
spoke to a large crowd in Vancouver, BC. The title of his talk was "Haiti
Fighting White Supremacist Terrorism: Before Napoleon I, Beyond Bush II."
Saint-Vil demonstrated clearly the historical continuity up to the present
day of this parasitic ideology that is by no means limited to Haiti. "Even
though Colin Powell looks black, he's as much a white supremacist as
anyone." And this applies equally to the people carrying out the slaughters
on behalf of the white supremacist empire-builders, coup-plotters, and CEOs
that just couldn't allow democracy a chance to flourish in Haiti.

     To compensate for this behaviour, as Eduardo Galeano has written
"Ideological justifications were never in short supply…With the guilt, a
whole system of rationalizations for guilty consciences were devised." [in
Open Veins of Latin America]. These rationalizations help the consciences
of present-day imperialists, who are regularly employing the "failed state"
rhetoric. Consider the words of Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, who
said recently:

     "Better governance within fragile, failing or failed states means
building effective public institutions. It is true that fragile states
often require military intervention to restore stability. You in the United
States know this well and so does Canada…We saw this in Haiti…Almost 10
years ago Canada, the United States and some other countries intervened…So
10 years later, here we are, back with the same problem and the same mess,
but this time, we have got to stay until the job is done properly." [8]

     Where Martin's rhetoric, introduced by the Clinton administration,
ironically, in the context of Haiti in 1993, eases the guilty consciences
of those who sanction mass-murder and the subversion of democracy,
hopefully The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti's report will
encourage people to address the real problems, and compel us to come to
grips with the horrible catastrophe that we have helped bring about in
Haiti. At this point there can be no undoing of these deaths, but the
perpetrators of these acts ­ many of whom are named, can be brought to
justice. Nancy Borgella's 9 month old and 6 year old will not benefit from
our bearing moral witness to the fact that Nancy had her left hand cut off
had was suffocated to death in a container, silencing her cries for
democracy and depriving these children of their mother. History has
stubbornly shown that democracy is not so easily suffocated, despite the
immense suffering that is to be endured by those who dare to make the ideal
of democracy real.

     Notes:

     [1] For more information or for a copy of the IJDH report, contact
IJDH's director Brian Concannon Jr. at Box 745, Joseph, OR 97846, or,
brianhaiti@aol.com.

     [2] Not to mention the fact that given the dozens of CIA and US
military interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean, it is an
historical truism that the popular masses are persecuted in the aftermath.
To go down to Haiti to investigate the persecution of Lavalas supporters in
this important and undeniable context, is a courageous and absolutely
necessary act. See http://www.haitipolicy.org

     For the National Lawyer's Guild Reports go to http://www.nlg.org

     [3] For other credible reports, go to http://www.haitireborn.org and
the Ecumenical Program in Central America and the Caribbean:
http://www.epica.org/index.htm

     [4] For background on the 1999-2000 context, including the murder of
journalist Jean-Dominique, see http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HP/4_5_0.html

     [5] The International Action Center, http://www.iacenter.org sent a
delegation to the Dominican Republic at the end of March. For details on
Noble Espejo's testimony, see my interview with Stan Goff
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticlecfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5557 The
details of Philippe's several coup attempts are available and will be
detailed in a forthcoming article.

     [6] Conrad Tribble, from the US Embassy's "Political Wing", which is a
euphemism, according to Stan Goff, for 'CIA wing', stated this, as did
Canadian Ambassador Kenneth Cook.

     [7] For details of Canada's role, as leaked by then Cabinet Minister
Denis Paradis, see
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=40&ItemID=5927    and
see the accompanying note. This will also be the subject of a forthcoming
article.

     [8] July 7, 2004, Sun Valley 2004 Conference, Idaho.
http://pm.gc.ca/eng/newsasp?id=230

.