23798: (pub) Esser: Ex-Military Marauds Haiti While U.S. Blames Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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

FinalCall.com
http://www.FinalCall.com

Nov 13, 2004

Perspectives
Ex-Military Marauds Haiti While U.S. Blames Aristide
By Judith Scherr

A recent State Department bulletin blames "Aristide thugs" for "the
violence in Port-au-Prince, Haiti that began on Sept. 30."

The United States is blaming the victim. Haitian police target
supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, ransacking
homes and churches, making arbitrary arrests and taking part in
extra-judicial killings. Former military men and death squad members
control parts of Haiti. U.N. "peacekeepers" stand by passively while
chaos reigns and in some cases actively work with ex-military
personnel.

When I visited Haiti in August, I saw firsthand the brutality wrought
by the band of ex-soldiers. (In 1995 President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
disbanded the military, which had overthrown his first government in
1991 and was responsible for more than 3,000 deaths between 1991 and
1994.)

One of the people I interviewed near Cap-Haïtien in northern Haiti
was Ralph Hyppolit, whose 14-year-old niece was murdered by
ex-soldiers and former death squad members Feb. 22.

On that day his niece and wife were packing, preparing to join
Hyppolit, who was hiding in the mountains. The teenager was upstairs
and his pregnant wife was below. The ex-soldiers "were asking for
me," Hyppolit said. "My wife screamed, 'I don't know.' They shot up
the house and tied up my niece. They blocked the door and sprayed
gasoline on the couch." His wife escaped, but his niece burned to
death.

Why was Hyppolit a target? "I'm Lavalas; I'm like President Aristide.
They don't want President Aristide for five years. (His full term in
office.) They don't want anybody fighting for Aristide."

Not far from where I spoke to Hyppolit, I viewed a charred police
station, torched courts, the remnants of a radio-TV station, empty
shells of school buses and scorched or bullet-ridden houses -- the
work of the ex-military, according to more than two dozen people I
interviewed.

Pascal Miller was one of the people I talked to. His brother, an
Aristide supporter, was killed by the former soldiers; Solido Gason,
a pro-Aristide carpenter, was shot in the leg and survived. I met
police chief Charles Chilly's parents; their home was riddled with
bullets when the paramilitaries came looking for Chilly, now hiding
out of the country.

In a Port-au-Prince prison, I visited folk singer and fierce Lavalas
supporter Sò Anne, arrested without a warrant by U.S. Marines in May.
I interviewed Lolo Reagan, once a journalist with the now-shuttered
children's radio station Aristide founded. Reagan spent three months
in a jail so crowded that inmates could not lie down to sleep.

What I saw in August is the backdrop for today's reality: prisons are
bulging with Lavalas supporters. Aristide's prime minister, the
minister of the interior and the mayor of Port-au-Prince are the
prominent ones among the hundreds who have sat in jail for months. On
Sept. 7, a union hall was raided and union activists arrested. On
Oct. 2, three former Lavalas parliamentarians were arrested after a
radio broadcast in which they criticized the government. Their lawyer
was jailed as well. On Oct. 13, priest Fr. Gérard Jean Juste was
arrested while serving food to needy children.

In this climate of fear, with their president ousted by foreigners
Feb. 29 (U.S. officials say they saved Aristide from the ex-military
at his request) and their democratically elected mayors and councils
removed by the U.S.-backed government, Lavalas has responded with a
number of marches calling for the rule of law and the return of
Aristide.

On Sept. 30, Lavalas militants took to the streets to memorialize the
overthrow of the first Aristide government in 1991, a coup
perpetrated by many of the same individuals who now make up today's
marauding paramilitaries.

According to Leslie Voltaire, former member of Aristide's cabinet,
the Sept. 30 violence began with the police shooting at
demonstrators. Two people died. After the shooting, Lavalas
supporters "began acting like hooligans because they were furious,"
Voltaire told the Washington Post. Dozens of people have been killed
since then: police officers, Lavalas supporters and those caught in
the crossfire.

Now the appointed prime minister has joined the State Department
propaganda assault, blaming Aristide for the post-Sept. 30 violence,
as well as the South African government, which has given Aristide
exile. And, as the ex-military increases its public presence and
firms its ties with the appointed government, the United States has
lifted an arms embargo to Haiti, ostensibly to boost the firepower of
police to put down those the State Department calls "thugs."

If America truly wants democracy in Haiti, it should start by
insisting that the interim government free people imprisoned
illegally and jail those who have committed crimes, restore the
freedoms of assembly and speech guaranteed by Haiti's constitution
and unlock the door to popular governance. That includes paving the
way for the return of the country's democratically elected leader.

(Pacifica News Service contributor Judith Scherr is a freelance
journalist based in Northern California)

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