#774: HNP and the Thin Blue LIne (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Anne Russell <avrussell@hotmail.com>

Haitian Politics Tinged by Thin Blue Line
Government Critics Face Police Harassment, Intimidation or Worse, Some 
Officers Say
By Serge F. Kovaleski
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, October 23, 1999; Page A17

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti—As night fell on the Port-au-Prince suburb of 
Petionville, a contingent of heavily armed Haitian police descended on the 
home of Leon Jeune, a former police chief and presidential candidate who was 
a vocal critic of the government. After firing a volley of gunshots toward 
the sky, the officers mounted a raid on his residence that participants now 
describe as dirty politics rather than law enforcement.

Authorities said at the time--Nov. 16, 1997--that Jeune, then 61, was 
amassing weapons to carry out an attack against the state. But two officers 
involved in the raid said that, while they confiscated several guns 
belonging to Jeune, the police planted numerous other firearms and munitions 
throughout the house to incriminate him. The officers also said the 
handcuffed suspect was beaten by a police commander and would have been 
killed had a U.N. official not arrived on the scene.

"We were shooting in the air to make it seem like he was shooting at us; it 
was part of the plan," said a participant in the operation. "The mission was 
designed so he would be killed."

Jeune spent more than three weeks in jail before a judge ordered his 
release. By then, his case had become an example cited by critics inside and 
outside the Haitian National Police who say that segments of the 
U.S.-trained force have been used at the behest of politically connected 
commanders to harass, intimidate and silence some opponents of the 
government and former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

A politically neutral police force was considered a top priority for Haiti 
after 20,000 troops, mostly Americans, dismantled a military dictatorship 
here five years ago and reinstated Aristide as the country's first 
democratically elected president. But interviews with a half-dozen former 
and active Haitian police officers suggest the effort has a long way to 
go--that some commanders use their powers for ruthless political enforcement 
that evokes memories of the repression Haiti endured for years before the 
United States intervened.

The police officers said that at times they were even urged by their 
superiors to ignore the human rights training they had received from U.S. 
advisers and to get tough with political targets. "One commander said to 
forget what we learned at the academy and act like policemen in an 
undeveloped country," a former police officer recalled.

The current and former police officers who early this month described the 
attacks refused to allow their names to be published out of fear of 
retribution against them and their families. Some of the former officers 
have moved to the United States and were interviewed there.

The orders to carry out politically motivated attacks came from upper-level 
commanders with ties to Aristide's Lavalas political party or the government 
of President Rene Preval, who is Aristide's hand-picked successor, the 
officers said. There does not appear to be concrete evidence that Aristide 
and Preval or police officials above the rank of commander have been 
directly involved in planning or ordering the harassment and intimidation. 
But speculation to the contrary abounds, and Haiti's society remains starkly 
divided between a small group of haves who run the economy and the poor 
masses who look to Aristide for radical change.

"Institutionally we have preached and consistently enforced a nonpolitical 
position," Police Chief Pierre Denize said. "This country has a great 
tradition of the force serving the political, and right now we are against 
the traditional current."

Many of the political operations have been carried out by members of the 
police department's SWAT division and officers in a crowd-control unit known 
as CIMO, according to the officers interviewed and foreign law enforcement 
officials. One of the officers said he also has received extra money from 
his superiors for conducting surveillance and investigations of political 
figures.

"In the end, SWAT had become a political instrument, a political tool. But 
this was not what it was supposed to be," said one former officer.

The past and current officers said that on a number of occasions they were 
ordered to detain individuals deemed to be political opponents on grounds 
that they posed a threat to state security, even though there was little or 
no evidence to support the claims. Some of the arrests were conducted using 
warrants.

"Sometimes there were operations that I think were done just to scare or 
intimidate people who were not in step with the government or Aristide. One 
time we raided a house above Port-au-Prince that had nothing more 
threatening in it than furniture," said one former officer, who said he quit 
the force after he was threatened for refusing to participate in a raid.

Three weeks ago, the issue of police harassment gained further attention 
when a group of officers carrying semiautomatic weapons accompanied 
government regulators and a justice of the peace to the downtown office of 
Vision 2000, a radio station that has criticized the government and 
Aristide. Regulators claimed that Vision 2000 was illegally operating its 
satellite link, but the situation was defused when the station presented its 
paperwork.

"I see this as political harassment of a radio station," said Vision 2000's 
general director, Leopold Berlanger. "It was intimidating because it was far 
from a normal inspection, which does not include an armada of police with 
guns."

Some politically related police operations have involved more than 
harassment. One night two years ago, an officer recalled, several SWAT team 
members were dispatched by a commander to an isolated stretch of road north 
of Port-au-Prince and told to wait for a gray Jeep with a certain license 
plate and to fire at the driver when the vehicle passed.

"The commander just told us that a lot of political leaders are 
troublemakers and if we do not take care of them they will take care of us," 
he said. "We had our fingers on our triggers but we never saw the Jeep."

Aramick Louis, the police commander accused of beating Jeune during the raid 
in Petionville, denied in an interview that he mistreated or planned to kill 
the former presidential candidate and said no weapons were planted in his 
home. Louis said a six-month investigation revealed that Jeune, who served 
as interim police chief in 1995, was planning a coup d'etat at the National 
Palace using 1,500 men.

"The police are here to protect democratic institutions. At the same time, 
we must stay out of politics," Louis said.

Jeune, who plans to run for president again next year, denied he planned a 
coup, saying, "What they did was political, and it was obvious to me that if 
they could have, they would have killed me. Since I got out of jail, I have 
not talked much. To tell you the truth, if I talk too much, it gets on their 
nerves."

Notwithstanding its problems, the new police department is considered to be 
a significant improvement over the state security squads that terrorized 
this impoverished Caribbean country during decades of military-backed 
dictatorships.

The force, said to have about 6,000 officers, has also been praised for good 
police work despite being short on manpower and equipment. Earlier this 
month, for instance, officers seized more than 600 pounds of cocaine, five 
luxury cars and $42,000 in the upscale Belvil neighborhood outside 
Port-au-Prince.

Drug-related corruption, however, remains widespread, including at the 
commander level. Subordinates have been transferred from their posts, 
threatened and even killed for raising questions about political operations 
or other illicit activities, officers said.

A power vacuum, meanwhile, has emerged at the top of the force with the 
recent resignation of the secretary of state for public security, Robert 
Manuel, who had worked closely with Denize since 1996. Manuel has left the 
country, apparently for security reasons. He had faced heavy criticism and 
pressure to step down from Aristide's political movement.

While officials from Aristide's party complained that Manuel was unable to 
rein in crime, others suggested the party wants to exert greater control 
over the police force. Lavalas officials, while acknowledging they have 
criticized the force's leadership, deny any connection to politically 
motivated attacks or arrests.

The force also came under harsh criticism for failing to respond more 
assertively at a May 28 anti-crime rally in Port-au-Prince organized by the 
Chamber of Commerce. The rally was disrupted by demonstrators linked to 
Lavalas, and the event grew unruly. The lack of police action was viewed by 
many as a strong indicator of the department's general allegiance to 
Aristide.

But recent events suggest the use of police in political operations can go 
both ways. During the Lavalas campaign against Manuel and Denize, a news 
director of the party's Radio Timoun was arrested in late April after his 
car was stopped in a routine search and leaflets denouncing Manuel were 
found in the vehicle. The director was accused of plotting against state 
security but was released the following day.

The night after Manuel resigned, former army colonel Jean Lamy, a close 
friend of Aristide and Preval who was said to be talking about assuming the 
secretary of state job, was shot to death in his car on a main 
Port-au-Prince street. Witnesses said several police cars were nearby when 
the shooting happened.


© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company


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