23792: (pub) Chamberlain: Amnesty condemns human rights failures (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Rights group Amnesty
International on Thursday condemned what it said were summary executions by
police, serious human rights abuses and an alarming number of illegal
detentions in Haiti.
     After an 18-day visit to the impoverished Caribbean nation, Amnesty
called on the interim government to investigate the police, and urged it
and a U.N. peacekeeping force to carry out a program of disarmament.
     While acknowledging interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue inherited
numerous problems from ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Amnesty
said, "None of these difficulties can be invoked by state agents to justify
violations of human rights committed in total impunity."
     Latortue rejected the allegations of human rights abuses and said
complaints against police were being investigated and violators sanctioned.
     "The government is committed to respect human rights and rejects all
accusations of human rights abuses," Latortue told Reuters. "Under my
government, the police are not allowed and will never be allowed to kill
people unless it is a question of self-defense or armed confrontation."
     The blast from the London-based watchdog added to complaints the
U.S.-backed government is persecuting supporters of Aristide, a former
Roman Catholic priest regarded as the father of democracy in Haiti but who
faced accusations of corruption and despotism in recent years.
     Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 after a bloody monthlong revolt by
street gangs and former soldiers. Pressured to quit by Washington and
Paris, he is now in exile in South Africa.
     The Latortue government has blamed Aristide and his Lavalas Family
party for fomenting a surge in violence that has killed at least 170 people
since early September and which threatens the success of the Brazilian-led
U.N. peace mission.
     Lavalas, which retains strong support among Haiti's poor masses, says
the government and the police are responsible for the bloodshed because
they have targeted the party and arrested hundreds of its allies on sketchy
charges.
     Amnesty said it received information on at least 11 summary
executions, including seven people killed by police in the Fort National
slum of Port-au-Prince on Oct. 26.
     Javier Zuniga, special envoy of Amnesty's secretary-general, said only
an independent investigation directed by international police under U.N.
command could restore public confidence in the local police force and the
U.N. mission.
     Among the Lavalas supporters arrested are Aristide's former prime
minister, Yvon Neptune, his interior minister, Jocelerme Privert and a
popular priest, Father Gerard Jean-Juste.
     Jean-Juste was hauled away from his church on Oct. 13 by police in
black balaclavas while he was feeding street children and originally faced
charges of disturbing the peace, a crime carrying a penalty equivalent to
30 U.S. cents.
     "There are people arrested pending investigation and the investigation
never takes place and those people are detained for weeks and months in
jail without being formally charged," Gerardo Ducos, a member of the
Amnesty delegation, said at a news conference in Port-au-Prince.
     Amnesty officials said they feared the return of death squads, which
rights groups blamed for thousands of deaths from 1991 to 1994, when
Aristide was exiled during his first term as president and Haiti was ruled
by a military junta.