30805: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-UN-Lynchings (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 27 (AP) -- The top U.N. official in Haiti raised
concern Friday over a sharp increase in lynchings throughout Haiti,
including an attack in which two men were killed by a mob as they traveled
to a wedding.
   At least six people were killed by mobs in a single week in different
attacks this month, according the U.N. mission's human rights section. At
least 105 people have been reportedly lynched in Haiti since 2005.
   "There have been a very large number of lynchings in the past months and
weeks. We do hope this will not become a trend," Edmond Mulet, the special
U.N. envoy to Haiti, told The Associated Press in an interview.
   He blamed the practice in part on a lack of confidence in Haiti's
notoriously corrupt judicial system, which keeps hundreds of people
imprisoned without trial while others who can afford a bribe walk free.
   "You have cases of gang leaders being released after paying judges,"
Mulet said. "The population knows, so they're fed up ... and they take
justice into their hands."
   Lynchings have become increasingly common throughout the Haitian
countryside, where police presence is thin and courts barely operate.