Haiti Human Rights Investigation November 11-21 2004 by Thomas M. Griffin

Folks,

Lead investigator, attorney Tom Griffin has just completed the most comprehensive human rights report on the situation in Haiti to date. It may be found at the University of Miami’s Center for the Study of Human Rights website:

www.law.miami.edu/cshr. Or www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html [I've also made available locally, here. It’s a 7.3mb PDF file. WB]

It contains many color photographs, much information on the poorest neighborhoods in Haiti, the repression of democratic rights, denial of due process, police and UN misconduct, U.S. involvement in the ouster of President Aristide, the prisoners, hospital, and morgue conditions. (See excerpt below.)

Please contact lead investigator, Tom Griffin directly at griffin@msgimmigration.com for interviews on this latest information on Haiti and any further details.

Attorney Tom Griffin was also the author of the very first comprehensive human rights report (for the National Lawyers Guild) to come out of Haiti after the February 29, 2004 coup d’etat. Thank you Tom and your human right team for this full and necessary report. It’s graphic with tons of pictures about what the mainstream media, the New York Times, Washington Post, Reuters and AP can’t seem to report on in post Bush-regime-change Haiti. The morgue pictures are truly disturbing, disturbing. The Middle Passage still goes on for Haitians. It leaves one wondering about the humanity of those Washington experts who forced this bloodbath on Haiti’s poor majority. The Colin Powells, Condi Rices, Roger Norgeigas, Bushes, Chenneys…et al. How ordinary is evil these days. She smiles on television at confrimation hearings and says “don’t impugn my integrity” “I’m civilized and educated” — all the while these beautiful people are slaughtering the rule of law, and the poor globally for the benefit of their corporatocracy.

This new Human Rights Report on Haiti is hard to digest but it is on point.

It tells of the post-Aristide Haitian hell the U.S., Canada and France and their agents in Haiti have unleashed. It details the U.S.-sponsored and UN protected slaughter that is occurring in Haiti after Bush Jr’s regime change. It tells the story no mainstream media or journalist has yet had the courage to truly tell or their higher ups, to publish.

Men Anpil Chaj Pa Lou.

Once again, Tom, you and your team have quietly gone about doing a great, honorable and necessary service for the establishment of truth, respect for the rule of law and democracy in Haiti. There is stunning work on U.S. role in this debacle – especially the complicity of the International Foundation for Electoral System (”IFES”), the U.S. destabalizattion campaign in Haiti leading to the February 29, 2004 Coup d’etat and certain “human rights organizations’” role in bringing this new bloodbath to the already impoverished by a U.S.-led embargo Haitian people. The fact that all the horror that’s been manufactured into Haiti is scapegoated onto ousted President Aristide and the “armed gangs” in Port-au-Prince ghettos is also fairly outlined.

This report is highly recommended reading for all those interested in going beyond the mainstream spin about why Haiti is a “failed state.” Really sad stuff.

Marguerite Laurent, Esq.
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
January 20, 2005
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CENTER FOR THE STUDY OF HUMAN RIGHTS
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI LAW SCHOOL
Professor Irwin P. Stotzky, Director

HAITI HUMAN RIGHTS INVESTIGATION: NOVEMBER 11-21, 2004

By Thomas M. Griffin, Esq.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

After ten months under an interim government backed by the United States, Canada, and France and buttressed by a United Nations peacekeeping force, Haiti’s people churn inside a hurricane of violence. Gunfire crackles, once bustling streets are abandoned to cadavers, and whole neighborhoods are cut off from the outside world. Nightmarish fear now accompanies Haiti’s poorest in their struggle to survive in destitution. Gangs, police, irregular soldiers, and even the UN peacekeepers bring fear. There has been no investment in dialogue to end the violence.

Haiti’s security and justice institutions fuel the cycle of violence. Summary executions are a police tactic, and even well-meaning officers treat poor neighborhoods seeking a democratic voice as enemy territory where they must kill or be killed. Haiti’s brutal and disbanded army has returned to join the fray. Suspected dissidents fill the prisons, their Constitutional rights ignored. As voices for non-violent change are silenced by arrest, assassination or intimidation, violent defense becomes a credible option. Mounting evidence suggests that members of Haiti’s elite, including political powerbroker Andy Apaid, pay gangs to kill Lavalas supporters and finance the illegal army.

UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most Haitians, are overwhelmed by the firestorm. Unable to communicate with the police, they resort to heavy-handed incursions into the poorest neighborhoods that force intermittent peace at the expense of innocent residents.

The injured prefer to die at home untreated rather than risk arrest at the hospital. Those who do reach the hospital soak in puddles of their own blood, ignored by doctors. Not even death ends the tragedy: bodies pile in the morgue, quickly devoured out of recognition by maggots.

There is little hope for an election to end the crisis, as the Electoral Council is crippled by corruption and in-fighting.

U.S. officials blame the crisis on armed gangs in the poor neighborhoods, not the official abuses and atrocities, nor the unconstitutional ouster of the elected President. Their support for the interim government is not surprising, as top officials, including the Minister of Justice, worked for US government projects that undermined their elected predecessors. Coupled with the U.S. government’s development assistance embargo from 2000-2004, the projects suggest a disturbing pattern.

A human rights team conducted an investigation in Haiti from November 11 to 21, 2004. The group met with businessmen, grassroots leaders, gang members, victims of human rights violations, lawyers, human rights groups and police and officials from the UN and the Haitian and U.S. governments, and observing in poor neighborhoods, police stations, prisons, hospitals and the state morgue. Because of the importance of their findings, the Center for the Study of Human Rights has chosen to publicize them. The report concludes that many Haitians, especially those living in poor neighborhoods, now struggle against inhuman horror. The Center presents this report with the hope that officials, policymakers and citizens will not only understand this horror better, but will take immediate action to stop it.

WARNING: THIS DOCUMENT CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHOTOS.

(Full report at:  www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html)
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Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network
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“Men anpil chay pa lou”  is Kreyol for – “Many hands make light a heavy load.”

See, The Haitian Leadership Networks’  7 “Men Anpil Chay Pa Lou” campaigns to help restore Haiti’s independence, the will of the mass electorate and the rule of law. See,
and www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html
or, www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/newsessaysreflections.html
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