23794: (pub) Esser: HAITI: A Brutal Regime Shows Its Colors (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

Council On Hemispheric Affairs - COHA
http://www.coha.org/

November 12, 2004
Weekend Release


HAITI: A Brutal Regime Shows Its Colors

CARICOM Spurns Latortue Once Again
Violence and Human Rights Abuses Escalate

•On October 9, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) voted once again to
postpone the resumption of normal relations with the
Washington-installed Haitian government of Prime Minister Gerard
Latortue, citing the latter's campaign of persecution against ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Party.

• CARICOM’s diplomatic rebuff is a result of the increasing violence,
instability, arbitrary rule, and human rights abuses in Haiti during
the last six months. This economic and humanitarian disaster has
pushed the country closer to the brink of political chaos than ever
before.

• The UN peacekeeping force MINUSTAH has been fundamentally
ineffective in preserving basic security and human rights in the
country, due to a lack of manpower and political commitment to a
proactive UN role in Haiti. The peacekeeping failure is not the fault
of UN representative Juan Gabriel Valdés, as much as it can be
attributed directly to UN Kofi Annan’s office and the complete
deference that the UN Secretary General has shown Washington policy
makers.

• For a speedy return to democracy, a dramatic resuscitation and
expansion of MINUSTAH is needed. Additionally, the UN, the
Organization of American States and Washington must act as one in
demanding that the Latortue government improve its appalling human
rights record, instead of blaming Aristide loyalists for the
country’s grievous problems.

• Serious thought should be given to replacing the inept and
non-responsive Latortue regime.


In the eight months since the abrupt resignation, under U.S.
pressure, of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, the
country has witnessed a steadily escalating level of chaos and
lawlessness under interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue. Such
violence raises fundamental questions about the Haitian government’s
ability to survive, much less retain any domestic or international
legitimacy, outside the Washington offices of the U.S. policymakers,
who hand-picked it, and those at the OAS and UN who today routinely,
even automatically, support Washington’s highly skewed vision for the
island – one dominated by an anti-Aristide motif. Even for a country
with a history of political instability and violent shifts of power,
the absence of effective authority and the presence of a brutal
faction of demobilized soldiers has driven Haiti to the threshold of
volatility usually associated with failed states such as Somalia,
Liberia and Afghanistan.

So far, the UN peacekeeping force MINUSTAH has been grossly
unsuccessful in halting the erosion of central authority, and its
stabilization is likely to fail entirely without the arrival of
promised new major troop units, the embrace of a more aggressive role
aimed at disarming armed factions, and a dramatic increase in
pressure by the UN, and Washington, on the Latortue government to
restore order. The interim government is currently presiding over a
regime of human rights violations comparable, if not more severe,
than those perpetrated by the widely denounced 1991 – 1994 military
junta. All Secretary of State Colin Powell has had to offer at this
point are unsubstantiated, far-flung charges against Aristide for
fomenting violence in the country, which are comparable in their
quality of scholarship to his contribution to the Iraq debate.


Economic Deterioration

It is important to note that in a number of crucial respects,
economic and political conditions in Haiti are even more dire than
there were during the military junta of the early 1990’s. At
approximately 80 percent, unemployment is higher today than during
the military rule because of the shrinking of Haiti's export sector,
as a result of international sanctions first put into effect from
1991-94 and the extensive looting that occurred earlier this year
after Aristide’s departure. Rural destitution is even more acute,
exacerbated by widespread deforestation that has left only two
percent of Haiti's arboreal cover standing and has produced
widespread land degradation, which intensified the flooding that
devastated southwest Haiti in May and June, and later sacked Gonaives
as a result of Tropical Storm Jeanne. Neither the Bush administration
nor the UN have criticized the gross incompetence of the Latortue
government in either preparing for or later dealing with Jeanne. One
can only imagine the fierce criticism that would have been visited
upon Aristide if he or one of his Lavalas colleagues were in office
at this time.

A Land Without Plenty
The country’s already meager agricultural output has been further
damaged by the government's termination of fertilizer subsidies and
the flooding of the Artibonite Valley region, Haiti’s historic
breadbasket. Declining production and import bottlenecks have sent
rice prices skyrocketing, which has led to serious increases in
malnutrition and infant mortality. Moreover, population migrations, a
climate of virtual impunity among the country’s venal officials and
increased violence, particularly of a sexual nature perpetrated by
ex-soldiers and other armed factions, are expected to exacerbate the
country's already serious HIV/AIDS epidemic. The fight against
HIV/AIDS, spearheaded by the Aristide government, has been severely
jeopardized by the ongoing instability. Equally dangerous is the
possibility of outbreaks of other infectious diseases among the
thousands of flood victims from Gonaives that continue to be housed
in squalid and unsanitary conditions, generating a crisis that is
certain to rapidly overwhelm Haiti's frail healthcare system and
meager resources.

Spiraling Violence, Intensifying Human Rights Abuses Given the
severity of the humanitarian crisis, a surge in refugees trying to
reach the Dominican Republic and Florida is inevitable, and is
expected to be particularly severe if the continuous violence between
ex-soldiers and Aristide supporters, which has wracked Port-au-Prince
since September 30 and taken more than 80 lives, continues to
intensify. While some of Latortue’s officers have attempted to
negotiate the demobilization of ex-soldiers or their incorporation
into the police, the military faction led by Remissanthe Ravix has
shown no signs of acquiescence. On the contrary, as long as the
government continues to ignore their outrageous demands to
reconstitute and provide back pay for the ten years since the
military’s dissolution in 1995, the ex-soldiers will continue to
exert pressure on the hapless Latortue through armed takeovers of
small towns, particularly in Haiti's central plateau. The
poorly-trained and demoralized National Police already has
demonstrated that it lacks the capacity and will to confront the
well-armed and well-organized ex-soldiers, and it is clear that the
police will be completely unable to maintain security if the already
tense situation escalates.

As bands of former soldiers freely wreak havoc across the country,
the Latortue government has been at the forefront of an appallingly
violent campaign of repression against Aristide’s political allies
and supporters, unleashing a wave of arbitrary arrests and
unexplained killings in the overwhelmingly pro-Aristide slums. Such
human rights violations and abuses of constitutional norms have gone
completely ignored. Epitomizing the situation is the fact that a
notoriously reprehensible figure like Bernard Gousse holds the
portfolio of Minister of Justice despite his utter disregard for law
and morality. The government invariably justifies its raids as either
searches for illegal guns (although a recent "arms search" in the
poor and pro-Aristide neighborhood of Bel-Air on October 6 produced
seventy-five illegal arrests but no weapons) or as hunts for
Latortue-designated “terrorists,” defined as anyone thinking,
planning or somehow linked to others thinking of violence. The
government, outrageously enough, has also recently arrested and
illegally detained a number of high-profile supporters of Aristide's
Lavalas party, including two highly-respected legislators ,Senator
Yvon Feillé and former Deputy Rudy Hérivaux, nine members of the
Confederation of Haitian Workers and leading advocates of
non-violence, like Reverend Gerard Jean-Juste. These victims of
Latortue’s and Gousse’s current reign of terror are in addition to
the officials of the Aristide government, including former Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune, former Minister of the Interior Jocelerme
Privert and former Delegate Jacques Mathier, who disgracefully have
been imprisoned without any charges for months.

Latortue government internationally condemned Though the U.S. and the
UN have been appallingly slow in condemning the abuses perpetrated by
the government that it put in power, other members of the
international community have become increasingly vocal in denouncing
the Latortue government for what it is: an illegally installed,
repressive and undemocratic cabal with scant respect for the rule of
law in Haiti. The OAS’s Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
issued a statement expressing concern "over several key areas in
which the basic rights and freedoms of Haiti remain weak and
imperiled," while Amnesty International has declared that "illegal
and arbitrary arrests" continue in Haiti and has named Rev.
Jean-Juste a prisoner of conscience. Renan Hedouville, director of
the Lawyer’s Committee for Individual Rights, has denounced the
government before the OAS for making arrests without warrants and
holding suspects without charges for longer than forty-eight hours,
while also reporting that there have been widespread accusations that
women and girls have been raped by ex-soldiers, a practice tragically
reminiscent of the 1991-1994 coup period, where such acts of sexual
violence were frequent and almost always went unpunished.

In perhaps the most important international condemnation of the
interim government, the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) voted once
again on November 9 to postpone the restoration of normal ties with
the Latortue administration, stating that there will be "no
compromise on the fundamental principles of respect for human rights,
due process and good governance." If Barbados’ Prime Minister Owen
Seymour Arthur and Grenada’s Prime Minister Keith Mitchell had no
qualms of conscious in attempting to win Washington’s goodwill by
being Judas to Haiti’s precarious situation, the same was not true
for Guyana’s doughty President Bharrat Jagdeo and St. Lucia’s Prime
Minister Kenny Anthony, both of whom took highly principled stands on
Haiti’s status. The latter directly called on the Latortue government
to put a "stop to the harassment of the political opposition," in a
clear reference to the campaign of repression that it has waged
against Lavalas supporters.

Haiti's failure to regain its seat in the Caribbean organization has
been an ongoing embarrassment to the Latortue government, and is
particularly important given the persistent relunctance of the UN and
the OAS to stand up to pressure from Washington and openly denounce
the current regime’s abuses being committed on the island. The
CARICOM meeting concluded with a commitment to work with other Latin
American countries, led by Brazil, to facilitate dialogue among the
political factions in Haiti. Hopefully this promised cooperation
materializes and the rest of the hemisphere, under the possible
auspices of the OAS, takes a more active role in protecting basic
human rights and the rapid restoration of democracy in Haiti.

MINUSTAH: An Opportunity Squandered
While MINUSTAH may well represent the best hope for averting the
collapse of the current Haitian government, it continues to be
debilitated by an under-fulfillment of pledged troop contributions, a
phenomenon that reflects a long-standing trend in UN peacekeeping:
the assigned forces are chronically under quota, their mission is too
narrowly defined, and is authorized for too brief a period, with
donors' pledges frequently not materializing. The World Bank has
estimated Haiti's reconstruction needs over the next two years to top
$1.3 billion, and a separate emergency appeal for $35 million was
subsequently made to fund post-flood rebuilding and allocate relief
over the next six months. Currently, $1.1 billion has been pledged,
approximately 85 percent of the total, but funds can be expected to
arrive slowly, if at all, and may be curtailed if the widespread
instability which threatens the integrity of the reconstruction
process persists.

Resource constraints notwithstanding, MINUSTAH also has demonstrated
a shocking lack of political will in confronting the root causes of
the spiraling violence, and systematically has attempted to avoid
potentially dangerous high-profile engagements. In addition, MINUSTAH
leaders have taken a notably complacent approach towards the Latortue
government’s appalling human rights record – not only have MINUSTAH
commanders and the UN special representative to Haiti failed to
vigorously denounce that record, the force has at times provided a
supporting role for illegal government arrests and other actions that
violate the rule of law.

In the arena of disarmament, UN military commanders have declared
that their mission cannot and will not include the containment of
armed gangs, despite the fact that its original mandate was to
establish conditions of basic stability to pave the way for new
elections. Such a declaration at a time when armed factions threaten
the integrity of the Haitian state, demonstrate a stunning degree of
disengagement from the country's political realities. In the absence
of a renewed commitment of political will and a promise to expand the
force's mandate, even an increase in troops will be unsuccessful in
reinvigorating MINUSTAH. Without such a commitment, which has been
woefully absent in past attempts to institutionalize democracy in
Haiti, a serious risk exists that the central authority will continue
to crumble and that the Latortue regime will continue to be a Mickey
Mouse government— smug, arrogant and lawless. This façade of
legitimate authority will bring about an unimaginably perilous
crisis, further discrediting the UN’s already feeble efforts and
triggering a new surge of “boat people” towards Florida.

It is essential that the UN and particularly the Security Council
nations immediately provide MINUSTAH with sufficient troops to reach
its mandated level and separate itself from the Latortue regime,
which now must be deemed as a failure that requires replacement
rather than reform. The length of the force's stay should also be
extended to at least one year and longer if possible, and its mission
more robustly interpreted to encompass disarming the armed factions
that are intimidating Latortue’s rule. Additionally, there is an
urgent need for the Security Council and the US to make one final
effort to pressure the Latortue government to abandon its attempt at
rapprochement with the former military faction, immediately end its
campaign of illegal arrests, halt its persecution of former Lavalas
party members and bring to trial known perpetrators of human rights
abuses, including its Minister of Justice.

Perhaps most importantly, Washington should take a leading role in
ensuring that Haiti receives promised international contributions.
Only such a long-term pledge has the potential to break the cycle of
repression, disintegration and deepening poverty that Haiti so
frequently has suffered in the past, and continues to suffer to this
day.

This analysis was prepared by Jessica Leight, COHA Research Fellow.

Additional research supplied by Larry Birns, COHA Director