23669: Esser: Haitian police execute 13 people at Fort Nationale (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

Flashpoints Radio
http://www.flashpoints.net/

October 28, 2004

U.S. backed Haitian police execute 13 people at Fort Nationale

Part I, Flashpoints Radio with Kevin Pina and Pierre
Labossiere.

Bernstein: Repressive forces acting on behalf of puppet Prime
Minister Latortue continued their attacks on the pro-democracy
movement. On Tuesday U.S. backed Haitian police reportedly entered
the neighbourhood of Fort Nationalle, forced 13 people to the ground,
and executed them one by one. The UN special envoy to Haiti has
called for the U.S. installed puppet government to investigate the
killings. Some question whether this is only pro forma because the
United Nations forces have in fact been collaborating with the
government police and former death squad activists in purging the
pro-democracy movement. As we go to air there are protests in San
Francisco against the U.S. installed government in Haiti and its
violent actions. During this broadcast we’ll see if we can go and
speak with Pierre Labossiere on the ground at that protest. But now
joining us in the studio is our Flashpoints special correspondent
Kevin Pina. Kevin

is in the country for an emergency speaking tour; we’ll tell you more
about that later. Kevin, it’s good to have you in the studio.

Pina: Thanks Dennis, its great to be here.

[…]

Bernstein: Well, let’s now go to a very serious situation. On
Tuesday, we were hearing reports of a, essentially, a mass execution
by supporters of the U.S. installed government. Tell us about, first,
what we know about exactly what happened, and then lets talk about
whether we can expect any support for an investigation from the UN.

Pina: Well, this is only one that we’re hearing about that’s made it
to the press; there have been others, but on Tuesday heavily armed
men dressed in black helmets - which is the signature uniform of the
Haitian S.W.A.T team - entered the neighbourhood of Fort Nationalle.
According to witnesses in the neighbourhood, 13 young men were
rounded up, they were laid out in a long line, in front of several
ambulances, and then they were each systematically shot,
execution-style, in the back of the head by the S.W.A.T team members.
Eight of those bodies ended up in the morgue, while the remaining
bodies have yet to be found. It’s assumed that, possibly, the
remaining bodies, they were still alive, they were still breathing,
and that they may have been dumped some other place after having
another bullet put in them.

Bernstein: Now, we know that these forces that work for the U.S.
installed government also work closely with the United Nations
forces. What can we say about actual UN forces being in the
neighbourhood, or nearby when this is happening?

Pina: Well, we know that all activities of the Haitian police are
coordinated with, assisted by, the United Nations these days. UN
policy is just outrageous at this moment. You’ve got every possible
Latin American military [that was] built and paid for by the United
States government that has a repressive history in its own country,
now on the ground in Haiti “assisting” the Haitian police. The army’s
of Brazil, the army’s of Chile, the army of Argentina, and now
they’ve got the armies of Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.  All
of them, each of them has a heinous human rights background in their
own country, are now part of what I call the “coalition of the
killing” in Haiti today.

Bernstein: Now lets go back to this incident on Tuesday. We’re
talking about whether its going to be investigated and fairly. Now
it’s unlikely that the [U.S.] installed government of Latortue is
really going to investigate their own police force. We’re not going
to see an investigation from the renegade army mass murderers. We did
here from the United Nations that they are calling for an
investigation. What kind of investigation should there be and what
can we expect?

Pina: Any investigation is necessarily going to have to go into the
role of the relationship between the United Nations and the Haitian
police. That includes the fact that there have been 100 Royal
Canadian Mounted Police in Haiti, who have been working in training
the Haitian police since the forced ouster of Jean Bertrand Aristide
on February 29th. If there’s going to be an honest investigation it
will have to include the fact that the Haitian police are being
aided, abetted and backed up by the United Nations, who is supposedly
the same organization calling for the investigations.

Bernstein: The [UN] representative…called for the investigation…

Pina: …Any real investigation will implicate the United Nations and
their role in Haiti.

Bernstein: And again, this is obviously the most significant story
here that you have the United Nations, putting this horrifying story
aside, you’ve got a collaboration where the United Nations is really
playing an intimate role in the purging of the pro-democracy movement.

Pina: Well, what their role is on the ground, and I’ve seen it, I’ve
studied it, I’ve filmed it, I’ve chronicled it, is that they are
there to make certain there is no armed resistance while the Haitian
police systematically murder, commit arbitrary detentions, arbitrary
arrests, in order to destroy the majority political party, President
Jean Bertrand’s Family Lavalas party.

[…] Details on Pina’s speaking tour, available at
http://www.haitiaction.net […]

Bernstein: Kevin, President Aristide made another statement,
obviously he’s far away in South Africa; he’s been accused of
fomenting the violence. He called for free and fair elections
including the Lavalas movement. Of course that’s not going to happen,
is it?

Pina: It doesn’t look like that’s what the plans are on the ground,
not at all. It looks like what the plans are are persecution, and
removal, physical removal, elimination of Famni Lavalas. Now you’ve e
got to remember a Brazilian general, the head of the UN peacekeeping
forces a week and a half ago, two weeks ago, said that it was John
Kerry’s fault that this latest round of violence had broken out,
because on March 7th in the New York Times he [Kerry] had said that
if he had been President, according to agreements in the hemisphere,
he would have done everything, more than the Bush administration
would have done, to ensure that Jean Bertrand Aristide had continued
his role as the democratically elected President. Well this General
Augusto Heleno said ‘well, that’s tantamount to Kerry inciting
violence in Haiti.’ At the same time in those same statements he said
‘any claims that Aristide would be able to return to Haiti are
unfounded.’ So here is General Augusto Ribero Heleno, the head of the
UN mission, the head of the Brazilian forces, the UN peacekeeping
forces in Haiti, dictating policy of who and what will Haiti’s future
be for 8 million of its inhabitants. Basically, he’s saying ‘there is
no future with Aristide, any talk of him returning is unfounded,
Lavalas should just go into that good night and be done with this.’

Bernstein: And of course that’s why there is growing resistance in
Haiti to this U.S. installed government because the pro-democracy
movement is quite widely supported throughout the country and there
was a huge election in [which] a majority of the people of Haiti did
elect Jean Bertrand Aristide. I want to ask you, we‘ve reported about
this plan that we can’t confirm where the U.S. installed government
there wants to, as sort of a model, purge, one way or the other,
either run them out of the country, run them into the ground or kill
them, 25,000 pro-democracy activists. Is that a reasonable figure?
What do we know about that kind of backroom talk?

Pina: well, first of all there’s lots of numbers games going on;
let’s just start with that, like Associated Press and Reuters,
they’re playing this number game. I think the number went from 24
deaths since September 30th to now over 50 deaths. Well, none of that
is reality. Just last week before I left the country there was a
special call, I think we may have talked about this, maybe it was a
week and a half ago, there was this special call by the director of
the morgue saying that the morgue had filled since September 30th,
and a week and a half ago the morgue had filled beyond its capacity
and he had to call the interim Minister of Health to send extra
vehicles because there were more than 600 bodies in the morgue over a
two week period. None of that is being reported by the Associated
Press and Reuters. Well, where did those bodies come from? What are
the conditions of those bodies? If there were 600 deaths in a
two-week period that we learned accidentally by this public call from
the director of the morgue, [then] how many times have there been
other calls where they have not been made public, where the morgue
has been filled beyond capacity? So there’s a lot more killing going
on than we’re learning about, than the press is reporting in Haiti.

Bernstein: …That’s the voice of Kevin Pina, talking about the extent
of the violence on the ground, what we really know about the numbers
and this notion of an attempt to purge large numbers of the
pro-democracy movement.

Pina: Well, there were people in Lavalas who I’ve conducted
interviews with, and by the way this has since made the government so
paranoid since they’ve read about this, that there were actually
people who informed Lavalas of a meeting, a secret meeting that was
held between the interim Ministry of the Interior, Herard Abraham,
who’s a former General in the Haitian military, as well as the
interim Minister of Justice, Bernard Gousse, and Gerard Latortue, in
which they discussed what it would take in terms of ending the calls
for the return of Jean Bertrand Aristide, and what it would take to
basically end this cycle, this period, with Lavalas ‘reticence’ for
involving themselves in the elections, which is discrediting them
ultimately; and it was discussed and said that in the capital alone
there would need to be 25,000 people either killed or forced out of
the country in order for them to go forward with those elections next
year.

B Bernstein: Well, there’s going to be a big battle around that and
that battle is also shaping up in the Bay area and around the United
States where a growing number of people are resisting this U.S.
installed government of Latortue. One of those is a friend of yours
and ours, and of this program, Pierre Labossiere. He is now in
downtown San Francisco at a protest. Pierre is one of the founders of
Haiti Action [Committee], and you can find out all about them at:
http://www.haitiaction.net. Pierre, welcome back to Flashpoints.

Labossiere: yes, how are you?

Bernstein: I’m good, it’s good to have you here with Kevin. Tell us
where you are and what’s going on.

Labossiere: Well right now we are at the corner, we just left Market
and Powell; we are marching on, taking our anger to Bush and Powell,
marching on Powell Street and maybe you can hear some of the sounds
back there; I’ll let you hear a little bit…

Protestors: END THE OCCUPATION! OUT OF HAITI!! OUT OF HAITI!!!

Labossiere: Yes, a very spirited demonstration, and we are marching
up and protesting the role that Bush and Powell and the ‘coalition of
the killing,’ as Kevin said, that they have put together, murdering
our people in Haiti. We are very outraged about this; there was a
massacre Tuesday evening in Haiti of, according to various estimates
I got, close to about 30 people who were murdered in different parts
of Port au Prince. What is their crime? Because they support the
President that they elected, this is their crime, so we are very,
very angry about this and we are expressing our outrage and
encouraging people to call their elected representatives and to
protest, to call the UN and protest their participation in these
atrocities that are going on in Haiti. And I want to mention that
Brazil is one of the countries, Brazil is actually leading the UN
forces in Haiti, and so we definitely need our brothers and sisters
from Brazil to express their outrage to the Brazilian government, as
well as the government of Chile. So this is really a misuse of the
United Nations, this is…I’ll tell you Dennis, I am so outraged by
what’s going on, you know? This is not what the UN was supposed to be…

Bernstein: Let me jump in here, Pierre. I know that among the worst
parts of this for you are these phone calls that you get from Haiti
all times of the day and the night; could you tell us about some of
the phone calls you get about people who you know, pro-democracy
activists, union activists, how they’re being treated, where they
are, where they’re running from?

Labossiere: Yes, I got a call from a friend of mine, he called me to
ask me if we had any funds to help out his family, because their
loved one was murdered, was wounded by police gunfire, because they
were firing indiscriminately; and so because they didn’t want to take
the chance taking this man to the hospital, but they had to do it
after a while, they had to take him to the hospital, and in the
hospital he was one of the people taken by the police and murdered,
from the hospital! This is the kind of stuff that we are getting,
these are the calls; just like last night I got a call from a peasant
organization where the radio station, the generator that they had,
that was supplied by people from the Bay Area…that generator, they
were going to try and take it, the military, the former military were
going to take it. Other calls I’ve gotten; the labour leader Loulou
Chery, because he’s a labour leader who doesn’t go along with what’s
going on in Haiti, they have come after him and ransacked his home,
so several times he has had to go into hiding where he is now
currently. Other calls about people who have been victimized, people
who are in hiding, it’s terrible, it’s terrible what’s going on.

Bernstein: Pierre, you are speaking to us from downtown Market and
Powell, people can still join that protest, share your anger, speak
out against this illegal operation in which the U.S. government
overthrew the duly constituted government of Haiti and Jean Bertrand
Aristide. Pierre, we’re going to stay on this, I urge people to join
you there right now; you’re on your way to Bush and Powell?

Labossiere: Precisely.

Bernstein: Good place to be. And we thank you for being with us Pierre.

Labossiere: Thank you so much Dennis, bye-bye.

Bernstein: We’re going top continue our dialogue with Kevin tomorrow.
Final comments today Kevin…

Kevin: …The point is that what’s going on in Haiti is wrong, that all
of the things that the so-called opposition against Aristide had
accused him of, being a dictator, arbitrary arrests, detentions,
murders, none of that happened under Aristide against that so-called
opposition and certainly if you see in Haiti today what you see is
their accusations of Aristide being a dictator has become their own
self-fulfilling prophecy in Haiti today. Today is the real
dictatorship of murders, arbitrary arrests, detentions, no civil
liberties, no freedom of expression.
.