News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 03/0205 |
Haiti News Briefs 3/2/05 |
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*Latortue’s
Appointment of an Alleged Murderer to the Interior Ministry
is Cause for Alarm ********** Latortue’s Appointment of an Alleged Murderer to the Interior Ministry is Cause for Alarm Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue’s appointment of Michel Bernardin as Minister of Interior in yesterday’s cabinet reshuffling is a major step backward for human rights in Haiti. Many democrats had questioned the government intentions in May 2004 when Bernardin was appointed Delegate in charge of local government affairs in Haiti’s Western Department, which includes Port-au-Prince, the capital and its attendant shantytowns. A Duvalierist hardliner with family ties to ”Papa Doc” Duvalier, Bernardin has long been suspected of direct involvement in the horrific murders of two young professionals in 1966, Jacques Holly and François Parisien, whose bodies were found mutilated in Port-au-Prince. As Bernadin’s cousin, Army Colonel Max Dominique, Duvalier’s son-in-law, eventually fell out of favor with Papa Doc in the late sixties, he left Haiti and settled in the United States, where he continued to live the high-life thanks to his former connections. Since the overthrow of the Duvalier regime in 1986, the Holly and Parisien families, like many others who had lost their loved ones to the dictatorship, have been unable to bring Michel Bernardin to justice for his alleged role in the assassination of their sons and brothers. Bernardin’s tenure as a Departmental Delegate during the past six months has not been without controversy. Several cases of fraudulent appropriation of public funds, equipment and vehicles entrusted to his office have been reported to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Interior, which serves as the umbrella Ministry for the local governments. On the eve of Haiti’s much anticipated elections, Prime Minister Gérard Latortue’s decision to place a notorious human rights abuser at the helm of the Ministry overseeing the logistics and the security of the process may be an indication that this government could be maneuvering to derail the process from inside, as was the case with the interim governments headed by General Namphy and Avril in 1987 and 1989. In the absence of a functioning parliament, Haiti’s human rights community has the obligation to challenge the Council of Wise Men to clarify its role in the decision to appoint this new Minister and to ensure that in keeping with their mandate, they hold the Prime Minister accountable for this slap in the face of those who have been fighting for so long to establish the rule of law and put an end to impunity in our country. Pierre-André Buteau ****** The Lavalas activist Annette Auguste wants to hear an explanation for her “incarceration without justification for the past nine months” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Port-au-Prince, February 2, 2005 (AHP)- Lavalas activist Annette Auguste, (Sò Ann) called on the authorities Wednesday to explain why she has been imprisoned at the Pétion-Ville police station for close to nine months. Annette Auguste was arrested on May 10, 2004 in the middle of the night and without a warrant by foreign troops. In an open letter to the authorities concerned, Sò Ann stated that she has no intention of seeking any form of clemency and that her self-respect also prevents her from accepting any form of pity or commiseration. Annette Auguste recalled that on May 12, 2004, Judge Brédi Fabien recognized her innocence and decided that she was to be released immediately. But this measure was not respected by those whose powers go beyond those of the judiciary, she deplored. “I have learned through the media that contrary to my own case, some citizens arrested as I was have been purely and simply released once their innocence was established, through the normal procedures common to any healthy judicial system, thus allowing them to return home peacefully”, she observed. “Am I thus to understand that my status as a woman is behind this arbitrary, unique, absurd and abusive treatment that I am experiencing”, asked Annette Auguste. She concluded, in the absence of any clear and sufficient explanation, that the conduct of the authorities toward her is in direct proportion to her social and political world view that makes it impossible for her to give a stamp of approval to any forms of occupation, exploitation, injustice or neo-colonialism. At my age, I can neither become an opportunist, nor can I change, falsify or reject the basic principles for which I have always campaigned, that is: social justice for those who once were slaves to the whites, effective participation by all Haitians regardless of their background and origin in the affairs of their country, a progressive and profound improvement in the condition of the working masses, a single standard of respect and justice for all, effective protection and sufficient assistance for all who are in need. Sò Ann said she is now waiting to see professional conduct by the provisional authorities that shows responsibility for the laws governing the behavior of the justice system before their easily correctable error is transformed into a disastrous horror. **************** The Executive branch may let go some of the newly appointed Ministers: the new Interior Minister is said to have been replaced already – AHP February 2, 2005 3:30 PM Port-au-Prince, February 2, 2005 (AHP)- The Ministers who were just named or transferred by the interim Executive did not take the oath of office Tuesday afternoon as scheduled. The decision to cancel the swearing-in ceremony was made at the last minute. The interim authorities decided to investigate the background of the new Minister of the Interior and Territorial Collectivities, Michel Bernardin, who was finally excluded from the cabinet and in his place a former president of the Court of Cassation was appointed. Pro-government sources also disclosed that the newly-designated Minister of Commerce, Marie-Claude Bayard, may have a foreign birth certificate and passport. That report was rejected by individuals close to Ms. Bayard. For his part, the head of the private cabinet of the provisional president explained this report by the fact that the Executive wishes to take some time to verify the authenticity of some rumors relating to some of the recently appointed Ministers. Mr. Brunache considered that it is important for the Executive to take these rumors into account because the Ministers of any government should be able to work without such distractions. For many, the images of the Ministers in question are already tarnished due to the suspicions hanging over them. However others feel that the new appointees can not possibly have any positive influence on the policy direction of the interim government, given that they are from the same political camp. AHP February 2, 2005 12:00 PM *********** The Jamaica Observer www.jamaicaobserver.com/ February 1, 2005 Haiti’s elections scheduled for October and November PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Haitians will go to the polls in October and November during a crucial vote that could fill a political vacuum in the country after a three-week revolt ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year, an official said yesterday. Nearly 7,000 local and regional posts will be contested on October 9, while the election for Haiti’s president and 129 legislators will take place on November 13, said Rosemond Pradel, a spokesman for the Provisional Electoral Council. The council announced the dates in an electoral decree sent to Haiti’s interim government, which is expected to ratify the decision later this week. Voters must re-register for elections because past fraud has left some people with multiple voter cards, Pradel said. His council hopes to register about four million voters – half the population – beginning in April, but many doubt credible elections will be possible this year. Armed ex-soldiers and former rebels who helped overthrow Aristide still control parts of the country, and violence in pro-Aristide slums has killed more than 250 people since September 30. Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has accused Aristide of coordinating the violence from exile in South Africa, a claim the former leader denies. “We cannot have free and fair elections in the country until we resolve the problem of the armed ex-military and gangs because those who have arms in the country will try to control the electoral process,” said Pierre Esperance of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights. Aristide was toppled on February 29 last year after a three-week revolt led by street gangs and former soldiers of the army he disbanded in 1995, shortly after the United States sent troops to restore him to power after a 1991 army coup. Aristide has accused US forces of kidnapping him and forcing him from office. The United States has strongly denied the charge. Representatives of Aristide’s Lavalas Party have said they will only participate in elections if the interim government ends what they call the arbitrary arrest and detention of Aristide loyalists, including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune. Former Lavalas Senator Gerard Gilles cited the arrests as proof that interim officials are opposed to Lavalas participation in elections, but expressed confidence that the international community would help resolve the dispute. “I am very confident there will be a change,” Gilles said. “This anti-Lavalas government does not want our involvement (in elections), but we are counting on the international community’s solidarity to exert pressure on the government.” Interim officials, who aren’t eligible to contest elections, have said the arrests were to curb a spate of violence and insist elections will be open to all parties. Pro-Aristide militants also say they won’t recognise elections while Aristide remains in exile, but Gilles said Aristide might encourage them to reconsider if prisoners are released. So far, 91 political parties have registered with the government with about 50 more expected to sign up, UN elections officer Gerardo Le Chevallier said. He said about 100 presidential candidates are expected to participate. The elections will be financed by US$26.5 million in funds from Canada, the United States, Haiti and the United Nations. The European Union has pledged an additional US$12 million. Elected officials will take office in January and February 2006. Copyright© 2000-2001 Jamaica Observer. All Rights Reserved. ********* maisonneuve MediaScoutmaisonneuve.org/ HIDING HAITI February 02, 2005 by Paul Matthews Haiti. When Paul Martin is looking to pronounce upon Canada’s role in the world, the country is some of his favourite prime ministerial fodder. But MediaScout can’t remember the last time the Big Six gave us the straight goods on the troubled Caribbean island. Since the interim government was put in place in the wake of last year’s revolt, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere has dropped off the media radar. Then there are the reporters who seem unwilling to reveal the whole mucky mess. Steven Puddicombe is a prime example. His report, buried on The National yesterday, provided little context. We saw images of gang warfare in the impoverished Cité Soleil ghetto, but the implication was that gangs supporting Aristide and his Lavalas party were the source of the problem. What was left unsaid is that these gangs are engaged in a fight for survival with anti-Lavalas police. Later, Puddicombe transitioned from scenes of anarchy to images of General Ravix and his army guaranteeing they will bring order—with the implication that the army, which has been disbanded, should be reassembled. The story failed to mention that this was the same army whose members were involved in last year’s coup, as well as the 1991 one. Nor did the piece acknowledge, as a recent University of Miami human-rights investigation:www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html suggests, that the army is protecting Haiti’s rich and often helping police carry out anti-Lavalas operations in the ghettos. Coverage of Haiti’s tumult has been plagued by a general sense that serious coverage simply isn’t worth it. Canadian troops are part of an international peacekeeping and policing force struggling to control gang warfare in preparation for internationally funded local and national elections this fall. Sadly, though, few Canadians have any idea what’s happening on the ground. The list of things the Big Six won’t acknowledge about Haiti is a mile long. Obviously, what reporters recounts depends on whom they talk to, but the University of Miami report makes MediaScout wonder why reporters like Puddicombe aren’t probing deeper into the story. Perhaps we’d just prefer to hear that our soldiers are there, keeping the peace, and that’s all there is to it. Copyright 2002-2005 Maisonneuve Magazine Association ******** PRAVDA.Ruenglish.pravda.ru/ February 2, 2005 Haiti: Time for justice by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey Haiti to have local elections on 9th October and presidential and parliamentary elections on 13th November The elections will fill the gap in Haiti since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced from power last year in the most blatant example of political interference and intrusion by the United States of America in the region since the failed coup d’etat in Venezuela. As the elections are announced, members of Aristide’s party, the Lavalas Family Party, complain that their senior members are being detained without trial (a practice with which Washington has been connected elsewhere). In fact, the recent history of Haiti is a study in Washington’s interference against a progressive, democratically-elected government. From the time when Aristide was elected in 2000, the USA launched an economic aid embargo, funded opposition groups, and provided support for coup plots. The coup d’etat against Aristide came on February 29th 2004. But this was not only a coup against the president: it was a coup against a progressive manifesto, just as the attempted coup against Hugo Chavez had been as antidemocratic an act as the countless others perpetrated by Washington’s playboys who insist on treating Latin America as their back yard. According to Washington, Aristide was “ousted” because of the level of “popular revolt” against him. But what is the truth? The truth is, as so often, very far from what Washington says. The truth is that Washington was funding and aiding anti-Aristide militia, whose attacks were becoming so violent that government of the country was untenable. Out with Aristide went government literacy programmes, educational programmes, progressive social and economic programmes which aimed to restructure the wealth distribution in the country and ensure that opportunity was available on a more democratic basis. Just as it did in Afghanistan, where the progressive socialist government of Dr. Najibullah was overthrown by the Mujaheddin/Taleban, backed by Washington, the United States of America yet again provides a telling example of the innate undemocratic, nay antidemocratic tenets which form the core of the institutions which dictate this country’s policy. As usual, Washington’s right-wing senators and congressmen, with personal ties to Haiti’s super-rich elite, dictate the foreign policy of their country, which as usual, goes against the grain of the fundamental law set out in the US Constitution. It is the right-wing elitists in Haiti which Washington’s policy strives to defend, not the people and not those who work towards a more democratic and free Haiti. Perversely, it was the USA’s International Republican Institute, purporting to “promote international democracy”, along with the European Union, which channeled money to the anti-Aristide opposition, the leader of whom is Andre Apaid. Among his cronies are former death-squad members and drugs barons (compare Washington’s friends in Afghanistan) Andre Apaid is an interesting character. Apart from being a citizen of the United States of America, he has close ties to the Haitian business community (and, it is said, also owns sweatshops). The forthcoming elections will be interesting, since before the coup against Aristide, the opposition never managed to muster popular support. That is precisely why Aristide was kidnapped by US armed forces, threatened with death along with his family and spirited away to Africa, where he now lives in exile. Those who replaced him, howling messages of support for the USA, took less than 24 hours to engage in acts of mass murder. It remains to be seen whether the electoral model imposed on the citizens of Haiti will be the same as that adopted in the USA. But it will be a perfect opportunity for those who believe in freedom and democracy to win hearts and minds in Haiti, not through shock and awe campaigns based upon wholesale slaughter, but upon the respect for the rule of law, of which Washington these days evidently has none. ©1999-2003 “PRAVDA.Ru”. ******** Forwarded by the Haitian Lawyers’ Leadership Network ****** “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. www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html ******************* Here is what you can do to help us help the people of Haiti: ********************** HLLN – Action Requested from Haiti solidarity groups and activists for justice and democracy Please circulate our mailings and posts to your mailing list and e-mail contacts. Read, adopt and circulate the Haiti Resolution (see below) from the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network: www.sfbayview.com/080404/haitiresolution080404.shtml Circulate the human rights reports, especially the latest Miami Law Center reportwww.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/human_rights_reports/c1humanrightsreports.html Do Press Work: Join our letter writing campaigns to help free the political prisoners in Haiti, stop the persecution of Haiti’s most popular political party and restore Constitutional rule. Write a letter, call the media, fax, – See our Press Work page for sample letters and contact information:www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/presswork/pressreleases_hll.html Volunteers to maintain and send us updated or new phone numbers and addresses to put on our Contact Information Sheet pages for our Network’s pressworkswww.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html Virtual interns and volunteers are needed to help us translate selected materials into French, Kreyol, or Spanish to reach a wider audience; Volunteers with some research and computer skills are also needed to help us update our “list of victims” and “Personal Testimonies” pages under Campaign One. (We have the materials, what we don’t have we know where to extrapolate them, but need help to put it together and into the format pages on our website for “List of Victims” and “Personal Testimonies”: See: www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaignone/campaignone.html Volunteers wanting to concentrate as primary coordinators/contributors to one of our seven campaigns www.margueritelaurent.com/campaigns/campaigns.html One internet savvy volunteer interested in logging and archiving, on our new Ezili Danto blog, (not yet unveiled) the regular Erzilidanto posts we send out so that those who only want to see these at their leisure or who cannot receive daily mailings will have access to these materials and posts, in an archived format. Donate or volunteer to help with fundraising by using our logo and HLLN materials to sponsor a “To Tell The Truth About Haiti Forum and Teach-In.” Proceeds from such teach ins or donations will go to continue the work of the HLLN, such as, our partnership with AUMOHD, young human rights lawyers in Haiti who are defending the defenseless poor whose only crime is that they voted for Lavalas, supported Constitutional rule or are resisting a return of the bloody U.S.-trained Haitian army and US-sponsored dictatorship. For information on AUMOHD, go to: www.april6vt.org/ ********* The Haiti Resolution: 1. Support the return of constitutional rule to Haiti by restoring all elected officials of all parties to their offices throughout the country until the end of their mandates and another election is held, as mandated by Haiti’s Constitution; 2. Condemn the killings, illegal imprisonment and confiscation of the property of supporters of Haiti’s constitutional government and insist that Haiti’s illegitimate “interim government” immediately cease its own persecution and put a stop to persecution by the thugs and murderers from sectors in their police force, from the paramilitaries, gangs and former soldiers; 3. Insist on the immediate release of all political prisoners in Haitian jails, including Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, other constitutional government officials and folksinger-activist Sò Ann; 4. Insist on the disarmament of the thugs, death squad leaders and convicted human rights violators and their prosecution for all crimes committed during the attack on Haiti’s elected government and help rebuild Haiti’s police force, ensuring that it excludes anyone who helped to overthrow the democratically elected government or who participated in other human rights violations; 5. Stop the indefinite detention and automatic repatriation of Haitian refugees and immediately grant Temporary Protected Status to all Haitian refugees presently in the United States until democracy is restored to Haiti; and 6. Support the calls by the OAS, CARICOM and the African Union for an investigation into the circumstances of President Aristide’s removal. Support the enactment of Congresswoman Barbara Lee’s T.R.U.T.H Act (HR 3919) which calls for U.S. Congressional investigation of the forcible removal of the democratically elected President and government of Haiti. *************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, contact Erzilidanto@aol.com |
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