23746: (pub) radtimes: Repression grows more violent in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Repression grows more violent in Haiti

http://www.workers.org/ww/2004/haiti1111.php

Nov. 11, 2004,
By G. Dunkel

The Haitian police, firmly backed by United Nations forces currently
occupying Haiti, have decided on a new tactic to put down the massive,
popular resistance against the U.S.-imposed government of Prime Minister
Gérard Latortue. This "de facto" government was imposed by the U.S. and
France on Feb. 29, after the kidnapping of democratically elected president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide by U.S. Marines.

During the day, the police drive into poor neighborhoods in areas known to
support Aristide and open fire on groups of people, leaving the bodies of
the people they kill lying in the street.

Haitians remember that the paramilitary Macoutes in the time of the
Duvaliers--another family of dictators supported by the United
States--would kill anyone who moved the bodies of their victims. The
Macoutes wanted the dead bodies to reinforce the terror they had spread.

According to an Oct. 27 Reuters dispatch, opponents of the Latortue regime
said 13 people were killed by the cops that day in a poor neighborhood of
Port-au-Prince called Fort National, near Bel Air. Only eight bodies were
turned over to the local morgue. Residents of Fort National say that the
cops disposed of the other bodies.

The morgue in this desperately poor country lacks electricity. It can't
keep bodies from decomposing so it has been burying them in mass graves.
While this is an essential health measure on the part of the morgue, it
also keeps the press and doctors doing autopsies from examining bodies and
determining the cause of death.

In the neighborhood of Carrefour-Pean on the same day, according to Haïti
Progrès journalist Kim Ives, who was there, four young men were shot dead
and left lying in the street.

The clearest example of this policy is the death of Emmanuel Marcéus on Rue
St. Joseph in La Saline, while he was selling candy with his mother.
Marcéus, who was called Manno, lived with his mother, two aunts, a
grandmother and two smaller brothers in a one-room shed. He was 9 years old
and in the fourth grade.

Around 2:00 in the afternoon, a pickup truck filled with cops dressed in
black and wearing ski masks pulled up and opened fire on the market. Manno
was hit in the leg and couldn't run away. A cop shot him in the abdomen. As
he lay dead or dying, another cop shot him in the head. (Haïti Progrès,
Oct. 27 to Nov. 4)

His family was so frightened that they let him lie in the street until
10:00 p.m., then took his body back home. The central morgue refused to
take it the next day, claiming to be full. The family finally found a
private morgue that would dispose of the body.

This murder of a popular 9-year-old has made the anger in his neighborhood
seethe even more. Residents feel that the U.S.-imposed government of
Latortue is conducting a terror campaign against them, fully backed by the
UN forces in Haiti, which take part in these raids against poor neighborhoods.

There are many reasons why the cops don't raid during the night. For one,
they are afraid that, in the completely dark streets of Port-au-Prince's
poor neighborhoods where there are no street lights, no electricity and
piles of garbage are scattered here and there, they would be vulnerable to
ambushes. From time to time, their fire is answered and they are forced to
retreat, even during the day.

Three recent demonstrations have taken place in New York protesting the
repression in Haiti. The Haiti Solidarity Network--in conjunction with
Fanmi Lavalas, International Answer and the International Action Center--is
currently working to build a major meeting in Brook lyn on Dec. 5 at New
York City College of Technology to explain the current situation in Haiti
and build support for the resistance.

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