a1917: Public Relations blunder (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Hyppolite Pierre <hpierre@irsp.org>

The real justice for the victims and their families is not by keeping the
alleged culprit in prison, but by making political torturers pay money, for
their crime, to those victims and their families.

I thought I should start out that way, being as specific as I can be. The
Haitian Government (GOH) will keep having to deal with these kinds of Public
Relations blunder, so long as they try to bring justice to victims of
atrocities through keeping the culprit in jail. The proof once again, is in
the pudding.

It may be a couple weeks now, since I tried to share my reasonning on the
issue of past atrocities with the Corbett list. The replies were scarce.
Well now, a judge (or commissioner) has left the country, citing undue
pressure against him in the Avril case. The GOH looks like the culprit, when
in fact, they may in this cae be trying to do the right thing by keeping
Avril in jail. So there goes the PR blunder.

What the GOH and many others seem to be missing, is that they cannot bring
justice to the victim's families the way they're playing the card. The Avril
precedent is a good case in point.

After Avril left Haiti for the United States in the 1990's and took refuge
in the US, there was a lawsuit against him. He was not put in jail. He just
had to be in court. Found guilty in the torture of many in an American
Court, he was fined some millions. What did he do? He slipped out of the US
right away and went back to Haiti. Why? Because that is the only language
these guys understand: the language of dola (dollars).

They may all talk ideology, discuss the issues of class (whatever that word
"class" means). However, at the end of the day, if they know that they will
have to pay for their misdeeds, they will at least think twice before
committing them. This proves one thing: their real ideology is not "class"
or "color" or "pèp" (the poor people); it's money. They just want to make
money and are not willing to give in on that front.

I am almost certain that, had the GOH worked with Haitian and international
Human Rights lawyers to gather evidence against those who committed
atrocities in Haiti during the past decade, and bring civil lawsuits against
them, I am almost certain that many if not most of the torturers would have
at best agreed to pay to the victim's parents and families, or at worse
agreed to leave the country for good.

In any case, what is the sense of trying to keep somebody in jail who will
eventually become a bomb in your hands, ready to explode and burn you in the
process? Why not bring up civil charges against them on behalf of the
victim's families? I guarantee you that Toto Constant, Cédras, Avril, and
those or the one, who are or is responsible for Jean Dominique's murder
would cringe. The only languange those people understand is money. Why not
make them pay, and thus render true justice to their victims' families?

Hyppolite Pierre
IRSP
http://www.irsp.org