24112: Concannon: (discuss) Major Development sin Human Rights in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Brian Concannon Jr. <brian@ijdh.org>

The past week has seen two major developments in human rights in Haiti:

1)  On Friday, Emmanuel Constant, the founder of the FRAPH death squad,
was served with a civil lawsuit in New York by three Haitian women who
were tortured by FRAPH.  A press release by the victims' lawyers at the
Center for Justice and Accountability is below, more information about
Constant and the lawsuit is on IJDH's website,
http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_emanuelconstantcat.htm.

2)  On Tuesday the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University
of Miami Law School issued a groundbreaking human rights report, based on
wide-ranging interviews with businessmen, grassroots leaders, gang
members, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, human rights groups
and police and officials from the UN and the Haitian and U.S. governments,
and observations in poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons,
hospitals and the state morgue.  The report examines the violence
committed against Haiti's poor majority, and shows how institutions that
should protect the poor- the police, the government, the UN, the public
health system- are actually contributing to the violence.  The report also
sheds light on US government programs that employed current government
officials to undermine the authority of their elected predecessors.  The
report's Executive Summary is below, the whole report, including
compelling photographs, is available at
http://www.ijdh.org/CSHRhaitireport.pdf.

Brian Concannon Jr.
Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
________________________________________________________
    T H E   C E N T E R   F O R   J U S T I C E   &   A C C O U N T A B I
L I T Y

"Bringing human rights abusers to justice. Representing torture survivors
in U.S. courts."

For Immediate Release
January 14, 2005

Contacts:
Center for Justice & Accountability (San Francisco, CA):
Moira Feeney, Attorney, (415) 544-0444 x302, mfeeney@cja.org
Matt Eisenbrandt, Litigation Director, (415) 544-0444 x304,
meisenbrandt@cja.org

Center for Constitutional Rights (New York, NY)
Jennie Green, Senior Attorney, (212) 614-6431, jgreen@ccr-ny.org

HAITIAN DEATH SQUAD LEADER, TOTO CONSTANT, TO BE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE FOR
HIS CAMPAIGN OF RAPE AND MURDER

COURAGEOUS WOMEN BRING CIVIL SUIT FOR ABUSES BY FRAPH

New York, NY: January 14, 2005.  Emmanuel "Toto" Constant was served with
a lawsuit today that accuses him of responsibility for torture, crimes
against humanity and the systematic use of violence against women,
including rape, for the purpose of terrorizing the Haitian population
during that country's brutal military regime in the early 1990s.

Despite being the outspoken leader of the paramilitary death squad known
as FRAPH (Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti),
Toto Constant has lived and worked openly in Queens, New York, for the
last ten years.  The U.S. government tried to deport Constant in 1995, but
suspended its efforts and released him from detention after he threatened
on the 60 Minutes news program to expose information about the CIA's role
in the formation of FRAPH.

The lawsuit was filed in federal court in the Southern District of New
York by the Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), based in San
Francisco, on behalf of several women who survived savage gang rapes and
other forms of extreme violence, including attempted murder.  The Center
for Constitutional Rights (CCR), based in New York, is serving as local
counsel.

Following a violent military coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
in 1991, the Haitian Armed Forces trained and armed members of FRAPH to
maintain control over Haiti's poor masses.  After democracy was returned
to Haiti in October 1994, the government of President Aristide issued a
warrant for Constant's arrest.  He fled and came to the United States.

All three plaintiffs in this case are women who were targeted by Constant
and FRAPH as part of a systematic campaign of violence against women.  Two
of the women were gang raped repeatedly by FRAPH members in front of their
families.  One of the plaintiffs became pregnant and bore a child as a
result of the rape she suffered.  FRAPH operatives attacked the third
plaintiff, leaving her for dead.  Due to the fear of reprisals, the
plaintiffs in this case have filed their claims anonymously.

The lawsuit is especially timely because Haiti is again suffering from the
massive, sytematic human rights violations committed during the 1991-94
military dictatorship.  Many of Constant's former subordinates in FRAPH
are again wielding considerable power.   They have embarked on a campaign
of abuses, including widespread rape, since President Aristide was forced
from office in February, 2004.  Among the leaders of this renewed violence
are FRAPH's former second-in-command, Jodel Chamblain, and local chief
Jean Pierre (alias Jean Tatoune), both convicted murderers.  In addition,
three members of the military government's High Command who were deported
from the U.S. for their involvement in human rights violations - General
Jean-Claude Duperval, Lieutenant Colonel Hébert Valmond, and Colonel Carl
Dorelien - were freed from prison and have not been re-arrested.  CJA
brought a case against Dorelien before he was deported and obtained a
court order preventing him from receiving nearly $1 million he won from
the Florida State Lottery.

The types of attacks suffered by the plaintiffs in this case - the gang
rape of women by paramilitaries as a form of punishment for the women's
political beliefs - have been occurring in alarming numbers in recent
months. One of the plaintiffs in the suit against Constant, speaking on
behalf of all of the plaintiffs, said: "We hope that the suit will deter
at least some of the violence, by sending a message that anyone who
commits atrocities will no longer be able to visit or live in the U.S.
with impunity."

CJA's Executive Director Sandra Coliver stated: "Toto Constant's
comfortable lifestyle in Queens has enraged and offended the Haitian
community in this country as well as human rights activists around the
globe. We are honored to represent these courageous women who are taking
great risks by coming forward.  They brought this lawsuit in the name of
the hundreds of women who cannot speak out because of the violence that
reigns today in Haiti."

Commonly referred to as "The Devil," Toto Constant has been the target of
several community protests in Queens. In November 2000, he was convicted
in absentia in Haiti for his role in the notorious "Raboteau Massacre" of
April 1994.  Until now, no court in the U.S. or Haiti has forced him to
face trial in person for the human rights abuses he committed against the
people of Haiti.  No one from the ranks of FRAPH or the Haitian Armed
Forces has been held accountable for the hundreds of politically motivated
rapes that were committed and continue to be committed against the women
of Haiti.

CJA, based in San Francisco, has obtained favorable verdicts in similar
cases involving human rights abusers from Bosnia, El Salvador and Chile
who had come to live in the U.S.  The Center for Constitutional Rights has
brought human rights cases against individuals and corporations
responsible for human rights violations since 1980, when CCR filed the
groundbreaking case which allowed those who have suffered human rights
abuses to bring their claims in U.S. courts.

Jennie Green, CCR Senior Attorney, commented:  "The U.S. government claims
to be fighting a war on terrorism, all the while allowing a man who
terrorized people in Haiti to prosper in our midst.  Documents released by
the U.S. government show FRAPH's role in human rights violations.
Constant as its leader must be held accountable."

For additional information about the case, please see CJA's website:
www.cja.org.  For more information on the current human rights situation
in Haiti please contact the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti
at info@ijdh.org or visit www.ijdh.org.
###
___________________________________________________________________


CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW SCHOOL
Professor Irwin P. Stotzky, Director

HAITI HUMAN RIGHTS INVESTIGATION: NOVEMBER 11-21, 2004

By Thomas M. Griffin, Esq.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY



   After ten months under an interim government backed by the United
States, Canada, and France and buttressed by a United Nations
peacekeeping force, Haiti's people churn inside a hurricane of
violence.  Gunfire crackles, once bustling streets are abandoned to
cadavers, and whole neighborhoods are cut off from the outside world.
Nightmarish fear now accompanies Haiti's poorest in their struggle to
survive in destitution.  Gangs, police, irregular soldiers, and even
the UN peacekeepers bring fear.  There has been no investment in
dialogue to end the violence.

Haiti's security and justice institutions fuel the cycle of violence.
Summary executions are a police tactic,  and even well-meaning officers
treat poor neighborhoods seeking a democratic voice as enemy territory
where they must kill or be killed.  Haiti's brutal and disbanded army has
returned to join the fray.  Suspected dissidents fill the prisons, their
Constitutional rights ignored.  As voices for non-violent change are
silenced by arrest, assassination or intimidation, violent defense becomes
a credible option.  Mounting evidence suggests that members of Haiti's
elite, including political powerbroker Andy Apaid, pay gangs to kill
Lavalas supporters and finance the illegal army.

UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most Haitians, are
overwhelmed by the firestorm.  Unable to communicate with the police, they
resort to heavy-handed incursions into the poorest neighborhoods that
force intermittent peace at the expense of innocent residents.

The injured prefer to die at home untreated rather than risk arrest at the
hospital.  Those who do reach the hospital soak in puddles of their own
blood, ignored by doctors.  Not even death ends the tragedy: bodies pile
in the morgue, quickly devoured out of recognition by maggots.

There is little hope for an election to end the crisis, as the  Electoral
Council is crippled by corruption and in-fighting.

U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods,
not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of
the elected President.  Their support for the interim government is not
surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked
for US government projects that undermined their elected predecessors.
Coupled with the U.S. government's development assistance embargo from
2000-2004, the projects suggest a disturbing pattern.

A human rights team conducted an investigation in Haiti from November 11
to 21, 2004.  The group met with businessmen, grassroots leaders, gang
members, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, human rights groups
and police and officials from the UN and the Haitian and U.S. governments,
and observing in poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons, hospitals
and the state morgue.  Because of the importance of their findings, the
Center for the Study of Human Rights has chosen to publicize them.  The
report concludes that many Haitians, especially those living in poor
neighborhoods, now struggle against inhuman horror.  The Center presents
this report with the hope that officials, policymakers and citizens will
not only understand this horror better, but will take immediate action to
stop it.

WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS.