#4851: August replies to Albert

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:JRAuguste1@aol.com

Title: TO CLEAR A PROPAGANDA. TOTO CONSTANT, USA, HAITI. REMOVAL. 

Key words: convicted, criminals, deportees, convicted aliens, INS, 1996 INA, 
removal proceedings, convictions, deportation, Toto Constant, investigations. 

Dear Sabine Albert:

You are my kind of people. Generous to a fault. You have endowed me with 
wisdom in an infinite amount. I am grateful for that. 

I have read the post from Roody Barthelemy with great delight and was 
enriched by it.   

When I added to its theme (criminals being deported from the US while Toto 
Constant is not) it was with the intention of making clear that 
Haitian-Americans convicted in US courts as well as Haitian-Americans accused 
of having committed crimes in the US (defendants) are immune from removal 
from the US pursuant to the Immigration and Naturalization Law as amended in 
1996. 

Mr. Barthelemy had (intentionally or inadvertently) lumped the 
Haitian-Americans together with aliens being deported from the US for crimes 
and criminal conduct pursuant to the heretofore mentioned law. I simply 
pointed out that this lumping is incorrect, misleading and erroneous pursuant 
not to my opinion but to current law. Please see the Immigration and 
Nationality Act and its 1996 amendments by the Antiterrorism and Effective 
Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant 
Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) of 1996. 

You will find the appropriate law and sections in Title 8, U.S. Code. It will 
outline (1) the three-step inquiry of immigration removal proceedings 
(formerly called "deportation" proceedings), (2) offenses which are grounds 
for removal of an alien from the U.S., and (3) discretionary relief from 
removal.

Nowhere in there will you find that American citizens, by birth or otherwise 
are targeted by this law. And so when Mr. Barthelemy writes "....U.S. 
Department of Justice has arbitrarily deported to Haiti around 500 Haitians 
or Haitrian-American criminals without providing....." "If Haitians or/and 
Haitian-American criminals have to be deported just because of their national 
or ethnic descent...."  his lumping of the removed criminal aliens with 
Haitian-Americans is not supported by existing law. 

The cited law targets aliens who have committed crimes while being in the U.S.

Another point: the crimes for which one can be removed must have been 
committed in the US. Officially Toto Constant committed no crime in the US. 

Here I basically reiterated the same thing I already posted. I never said 
then nor am I saying now "that there is no legal ground for deporting 
Constant to Haiti or that he can't be deported". 

Deport Toto Constant wherever you wish but you simply can't do it under the 
same laws that allow removal of criminal aliens who have committed crimes 
while in the US. In other words, try to deport Constant, do it right away but 
under the appropriate laws, whatever they may be. It shouldn't and can't be 
done a la "vite vite," "koul cho li bon," "tout voum se do" as things are too 
often done in my country of birth: Haiti. 

While we are on this phase of discourse let me give you my opinion regarding 
the deportation of Constant to Haiti. For the sake of Haiti I am, as of now, a
t this point in time, against it, and based upon its own actions and for its 
own reasons, I dare say so is the present Haitian government. 

Consider that it has been widely reported that a redacted set of the seized 
FRAPH documents are available immediately to the Haitian government. Why has 
it not accepted that for now and flush out whatever evidence it can obtain 
from the redacted files to further support its demand and legal maneuverings 
that Constant be returned to Haiti for judgment? Oh! I know the answer: 
Independent Haiti; the nation's honor is at stake; Affaires nationales; blue 
and red; Haiti's property; les dossiers complets; 1804; and more statements 
along that line. Yeah, right! 

It is all for "la gallerie" my dear, for show to appease the exalted 
tire-equipped lavalas crowd. Besides there is enough tires to go around and 
when the crowd start doing its thing, where it stops no one knows. 

And what if Constant is returned to Haiti, who is going to give him a fair 
and impartial trial? the present corrupt and inept Haitian Justice System? 

Remember that the whole world would be watching that trial and Lord knows 
Haitian political and social leaders have done enough on the international 
scene to make that nation's population look like educated fools if not 
downright jerks. The Haitian people have suffered enough and cannot afford to 
be ridiculed anymore. It will be a great monkey and donkey show in between 
the two lions (art, statues) posted in front of the Palais de Justice. A 
Constant trial will involve locating secret burial plots, exhumation and 
examination of cadavers, crime scene analysis; a forensic nightmare for a 
country like Haiti who does not have any forensic expert. Name me one Juge de 
Paix or Juge D'Instruction (they conduct criminal investigations, detective 
work) in Haiti who is also a forensic expert in any forensic discipline, name 
me just one, please. It would be a great "bouilli vide" like the 1995 trial 
of the accused killer of Izmery: a certain "Zimbabwe", his nickname; like the 
farcical trial of the infamous Roger Lafontant. You will need experts in 
interrogation, documents analysis and authentication, crime reconstruction, 
etc., etc.. 

Live victims you say, yes, Haiti has plenty of that, it is a national 
product, but one will need eyewitness victims willing to testify accurately 
and truthfully, point out accused (Toto Constant) that they have seen in 
criminal action. It has been said that he gave orders; members of FRAPH wore 
face masks to do their bastardly deeds; all things that have to be 
satisfactorily proven, even under the French/Haitian system which is heavily 
slanted against the accused. 

Borrow the forensic experts you say... Well, be advised that "La Constitution 
Haitienne ne permet pas l'utilization d'experts etrangers" which is the 
formula the legal work group of which I was a member ran into in 1995 when we 
were shipped there by the US Dept. of Justice to assist Haiti in its Judicial 
Reform. Whenever things got too hot the sacred formula reared its official 
head. 

(I often wonder if Brian Concannon, Esq. ever met the formula in his effort 
and work put forth in Haiti. ... but that is another story)

I chose to use some of the endowed wisdom and will not provide detailed names 
and/or circumstances publicly here. Suffice it to say that I am convinced 
that Haitian authorities of all ideology do not really want to air certain 
political/historical chapters of recent past. If you are allowed to dig too 
much who knows where the digging will stop. Perhaps it might all lead to 
one's own doorsteps. When it comes to criminal investigations, inquests re: 
certain political assassinations, and countless other political events which 
took place in Haiti, the perceived political position in Haiti and in the US 
as well, seems to be "Ne pas reveiller les chats qui dorment."

So first let us see if Haiti can take advantage of the money and effort put 
forth by its various international friends to really reform its judicial 
system before embarking upon grandiose legal trips such as trying the Toto 
Constant of the world. Let us see Haiti give accused felons trials all year 
around instead of may be twice a year at Les Assises time. Let us see 
juvenile courts trying all the juvees parked like animals at Fort National 
without formal charges and legal representation. Let us see the parquet of 
Port-au-Prince meting out justice on a consistent basis instead of putting 
people "au depot" to never hear from them again. Let us see indigent 
defendants in Haiti receive competent legal representation instead of being 
represented by eager stagiaires who never get to speak to their clients and 
who receive their clients' dossier from the parquet the afternoon before the 
next day trial. Let us see Juges de Paix who when shown the techniques to 
make fingerprints visible to the naked eye and to lift them off objects do 
not proclaim in awe "blan sa a gin poin". Let us see magistrates who do not 
issue arrest warrants based upon "li bam la gen an, mwen mete l nan tiwa, li 
fe miste, li rale kob la". Let us see people sentenced to "travaux forces a 
perpetuite" actually do some "travaux" of any sort instead of non-stop domino 
playing in the prison yard at rue du Centre. Let us have a criminal justice 
system for all the Haitian people instead of one for the people at cite Katon 
for instance and another for .... Kenscoff. Let us arrest unruly criminal 
children of all sorts instead of the homeless sons and daughters of Ti Soya 
only. When was the last time one saw any child of the upper crust arrested in 
Haiti?  

Let us really get it together.  

It is important to march to force the neighbor do the right thing. 

It is equally if not more important to march to force our leaders to do the 
right thing with our criminal justice system. 

Then and only then let Toto Constant walk into the Palais de Justice for 
trial. 

And I will be proudly watching the trial with the rest of the whole civilized 
world.