23579: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Human Rights (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHELLE FAUL

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 22 (AP) -- Human rights violations common under the
government of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide still exist under
Haiti's new U.S.-backed regime, a leading human rights lawyer said Friday.
   Illegal arrests without warrants and people held without charge beyond
the 48-hour law persist under interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's
government, which was installed in March, said Renan Hedouville, director
of the Lawyer's Committee for Individual Rights.
   The government maintains that people who have been arrested or detained
-- hundreds since rebels ousted Aristide in February -- have been held for
good reasons, which include committing crimes, participating in gang
activity or clashing with police.
   "We recognize that prison conditions are deplorable. But we inherited a
prison system that was in ruins and are preparing a program to rebuild it,"
Justice Minister Bernard Gousse told The Associated Press on Friday.
   "No one has been arrested for his or her political allegiance but for
acts of terrorism or other crimes. Aristide supporters have not been purged
from the state bureaucracy," Gousse said.
   At least 55 people have been killed and scores wounded in the capital
since police clashed with Aristide partisans calling for their leader's
restoration at a Sept. 30 demonstration.
   From his exile in South Africa, Aristide has denied U.S. accusations
that his followers are responsible for the violence.
   Hedouville, who presented his case Friday to the Organization of
American States, denounced violations committed by former soldiers whose
rebellion ousted Aristide in February and continue to hold sway in Haiti's
countryside despite the presence of a small U.N. peacekeeping force.
   "In the month of August, for example, more than 50 cases of rape by
former military were reported to our hot line," he said. The violence is
being committed against women and young girls in poor neighborhoods of the
capital, as well as in other parts of the country.
   During the 1991-94 period of military-backed rule, soldiers and
paramilitary terrorists used rape as a weapon to punish Aristide
supporters, human rights advocates say.