a1679: Ex-Disney employee implicated in massacre (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

MIAMI, April 15 (UPI) -- A former Haitian general convicted in absentia of
involvement in a massacre that killed dozens in a beachside slum had been
working at Walt Disney World near Orlando, Fla., Newsweek reported Monday.
   The allegation follows an Amnesty International report released last
week that America has become a safe haven for torturers.
   Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Duperval was Haiti's second ranked military
officer to Haitian dictator Raoul Cedras at the time of the massacre April
22, 1994. The Cedras government fell in September of that year and Duperval
disappeared.
   The general was charged in 1997 with murder, attempted murder, torture
and other crimes for his role in the massacre in Raboteau. He was among 30
men who were convicted in absentia in 2000.
   Newsweek said it reached Duperval by telephone at his home in Orlando
Thursday and he confirmed he was the same man who served under Cedras in
Haiti. He declined to outline his duties at Disney World.
   "I want to keep my privacy and don't want to give any declaration," he
said. "All this is past for me. I have a daughter to educate and I am no
longer in public life."
   Disney spokesman Bill Warren confirmed that day that Duperval was an
hourly employee at Disney World. The next day, Warren told Newsweek he had
been hired in 1997 and was no longer an employee.
   Amnesty International said as many as 1,000 torturers and murders from
the Caribbean, Latin America, Indonesia and Somalia may have fled to the
United States to escape punishment at home.
   The organization said the United States was authorized by Congress eight
years ago to prosecute those fugitives but has not tried one case.
   Richard Krieger, a retired State Department official and former Nazi
hunter, is calling on the U.S. government to prosecute and deport Duperval
and other Haitians.
   "It is disheartening to learn that at least 36 Haitian perpetrators of
extra judicial killing and torture have found their way into this country,
including those connected both by deeds and orders in the Raboteau
massacre," said Krieger, who now heads International Educational Missions
in Boynton Beach, Fla.
   He is an advocate of a bill introduced in Congress by Sen. Pat Leahy,
D-Vt., and Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla. that would broaden the powers of the
government to prevent war criminals, torturers and terrorists from entering
the country. It would also make it easier to be deport them if they make it
into the United States.