25851: jedidiah (comment) PNH news (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: J.David Lyall <postmaster@lyalls.net>

The director of the polis national  haiti changed this week. The outgoing 
director seems to have been a miserable failure but he was praised and given a 
polite handshake. Tanti Jesse Coicou (sp?) was announcing kidnappers within the 
police force every week but nothing was done about the polis for the  past year 
and a half of interim government. Kinda like giving the director of the 
penitentiary a golden handshake after he let 500 prisoners escape to start up 
this kidnapping wave.

Last month there was a pretty amusing affair which wasn't reported in the 
english language press. It was on a friday, I recall because I was  on the way 
to the bibliotheque. Library. However you spell it in french. The day before 
someone had been arrested in thomassin, some big chimere who had been invading 
houses and raping everyone in the house. And their dogs.

So on a friday late in June there  was a big hubbub. It was reported that 
minustah had taken possession of this prisoner from the PNH and had him at the 
airport. They were trying to get him  out  of the country and away from the 
patriotic haitian police. The suspect was a civilian employee of minustah and 
the minustah police were trying to stage a breakout. Reports went on that the 
CIVPOL people were taking over command of the police and trying to steal away 
all the foreigners that the PNH had in  custody.

It was a great opportunity for nationalistic bombast. All the radio stations 
were talking about it. Some said that the airport had been closed by minustah, 
presumably so that a private plane could be brought in.

When I heard the commentators complaining that the canadians had been put in 
charge of the polis by the UN I was pretty happy. Apparently the security 
council actually did 'task' (military talk) the civpol with vetting every 
member of the police. Way past time.

So, the story that came out over the next few days was that this prisoner who 
was supposedly being spirited out of the country by minustah was being 
questioned at the polis station  there. He may have been an employee of 
minustah, maybe not. He had seven different haitian ID cards and was a canadian 
citizen. He was talking about corrupt police within the PNH that he had been 
working with.

So. The final story (the important part, I lost track  of which details were 
decided to be true) was that he was talking about the gangsters and  kidnappers 
within the PNH whom he had been working with. The uproar was started by great 
haitian nationalists so that this prisoner could be rescued from the minustah 
and put back under the control of various forces within the PNH. So he could be 
disappeared.

Which polis station at the airport is something I've wondered. The only one 
I've noticed is the casserne out past the domestic airport. Aerodrome Guy 
Malary. That may be a Polis Judiciare station. Looks more like an army base, 
with tall walls.

They say that this new PNH director was formerly with the judicial police. 
Whatever a judicial police is; a rather mysterious designation. They are 
rumored to be one of the police forces who can be trusted. Why are there so 
many different police forces? What does the Polis Judiciare do?

--