22959: Esser: Haitians confront new hardships, repression (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser <torx@joimail.com>

Haitians confront new hardships, repression
Author: Rosita Johnson

People's Weekly World Newspaper, 08/12/04 10:37
http://www.pww.org/article/articleview/5602/1/227/
 

PHILADELPHIA — In the wake of the Feb. 29 U.S.-backed coup d’etat
against Haiti’s constitutionally elected President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, the Haitian people’s living conditions and political
freedoms have sharply deteriorated, eyewitnesses say.

Representatives of four delegations to Haiti held a press conference
here July 28 to inform the public of the situation there.

The current regime in Haiti, headed by businessman Gerard Latortue,
was formed by an alliance of Aristide’s non-elected political
opposition and former right-wing Haitian Army officers and
paramilitary death squads. These forces, in turn, have been backed by
the U.S. and French governments.

Attorney Tom Griffin traveled to Haiti with the National Lawyers
Guild in late March and again in mid-April. He and his colleagues
interviewed elected officials, members of the Fanmi Lavalas Party
(Aristide’s party), members of the opposition parties, police
officers, and troops from the U.S., France, Canada and Chile. They
also spoke with journalists, lawyers, trade unionists, community
activists, religious leaders, former Haitian Army officers and
ordinary Haitian citizens.

In addition to the capital, Port-au-Prince, they visited Les Cayes,
Petit Goave, and Gran Goave, among other places.

Griffin said, “Overwhelming evidence shows that violence and threats
are being directed at anyone who is or has been a supporter of
President Aristide.”

The delegation found that the interim government has failed to
establish a credible judicial system and ignores the Haitian
constitution.

Griffin described a visit to the morgue in Port-au-Prince. He and
others interviewed the director and workers, who revealed that 1,000
bodies were brought there in March, ten times the normal amount. Many
had been shot with their hands tied behind them and plastic bags over
their heads.

The delegation interviewed two Haitian human rights groups, the
Committee of Advocates for Respect of Individual Liberties (CARLI)
and the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR). Both proved to
be closely linked to the Latortue regime and both receive funding
from U.S. agencies and “private sources.” CARLI furnishes a daily
list of names of Lavalas supporters to be read on radio broadcasts as
“human rights abusers,” even though CARLI lawyers admit they had not
investigated or spoken to the accused.

Interviews with community group leaders confirmed that Aristide
supporters have been singled out to be murdered and their homes
burned to the ground. Those not killed are in hiding and are pleading
for protection or asylum in countries outside of Haiti. The
3,600-member “multinational military force” patrols the slum area of
Port-au-Prince, but does not protect Aristide supporters.

The panelists described the new economic hardships imposed on the
Haitian people. All the government-sponsored food, shelter and
literacy programs ended with the coup. Unemployment, a long-term
problem, has shot up to 70 percent. The average Haitian ate one meal
per day before the coup, but now the prices of rice and other foods
have doubled and most people, even those with jobs, are eating only
about three times a week.

Dr. Frantz Latour, director of the Haitian Community Center here,
said, “Eighty-nine years ago today U.S. Marines began a 19-year
occupation of Haiti. But before leaving, the U.S. created the Haitian
Army to enforce U.S. interests in Haiti. Today courageous citizens in
Haiti, under the 33rd brutal coup, risk their lives to protest, and
we will do the same.”

Similar press conferences were held in Miami, Chicago and Boston.

The author can be reached at phillyrose1@earthlink.net.