30025: Haiti4peace (reply) 30017 Dailey (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Haiti4peace@techemail.com


Part of the findings of the Haiti Human Rights study conducted by
researchers Athena Kolbe and Royce Hutson of Wayne State University's
School of Social Work were presented in a August 31, 2006 peer-reviewed
journal article in the Lancet. This article focused on answering the
question: "who were the human rights violators?"

MINUSTAH, as well as a number of other political actors including police
and ex-soldiers from the demobilized Haitian Army, were named as
responsible for human rights violations. (Incidentally, the
investigations by both Wayne State's School of Social Work -- not
Sociology -- and the Lancet found that not only had the raw data not been
manipulated, but also that there was no evidence of bias or false reports
in the data analysis or findings. This means that, despite accusations to
the contrary, the findings of the Kolbe-Hutson Lancet Study are now and
always have been accurate.)

Other findings from the report have been presented in subsequent peer
reviewed presentations including one at the American Public Health
Association conference in Boston last October by Dr. Hutson. This
presentation focused on "who were the victims?"

Among other things, Dr. Hutson reported that 57% of the murder victims
were from a household affiliated with Lavalas (30% were from Lespwa
households and 9% from unaffiliated households), meaning that people from
a household affiliated with a political party were ten times more likely
to be murdered than those with no political party affiliation. He also
reported on discrimination against Lavalas and Lespwa households when it
came to arrests and detentions. People from households affiliated with
Lavalas/Lespwa were 3.4 times more likely to be arrested than those from
non-Lavalas/Lespwa households. Since few of those arrested had been to
trial or allowed to see an attorney (or even been charged with a crime)
this means that a large number of Lavalas and Lespwa affiliated household
members had serious human rights violations committed against them as
they were illegally and arbitrarily detained.

Regarding the question of "statistical significance" -- I can only
recommend that Peter Dailey take a basic survey methodology or statistics
course. No one disputes the fact that MINUSTAH killed people during this
period; they themselves have acknowledged it.  If Peter Daily cannot
comprehend why a statistically representative random sample of households
would not detect every case of murder, well then perhaps he is not
intelligent enough to engage in a debate on this issue.


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