News
and opinions on situation in Haiti |
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| 21/01/05 | Haiti News Roundup 19-21/1/05 |
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African Union offers to intercede in Haiti – Jamaican Observer AP Friday, January 21, 2005 ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) – The African Union has offered to help broker talks aimed at restoring stability in Haiti and paving the way for elections this year, officials at the 53-nation bloc said yesterday. The offer follows talks between AU Commission chairman Alpha Oumar Konare, Haiti’s ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and South African President Thabo Mbeki in Pretoria on Tuesday. The AU hopes to bring together key players in Haiti to help stem rising violence, Konare’s spokesman, Adam Thiam, said at the AU’s headquarters in Addis Ababa. “We want to try and foster dialogue,” Thiam said. “Dialogue is extremely difficult in a country where there is no consensus.” Thiam said the AU was interceding at the request of Haiti’s interim government, which has promised elections in November and December. Konare visited the Western hemisphere’s poorest country last month. Aristide, who left Haiti on February 29 last year as rebels approached the capital Port-au-Prince, welcomed the AU initiative, Thiam said. Violence has swelled in Aristide’s slum strongholds in the Caribbean country since September 30 last year, killing more than 200 people, as his partisans intensified demands for his return home from exile in South Africa. Despite the deployment of a US-led peacekeeping force, which was replaced by a UN force in June, rebels and former soldiers who ousted Aristide have also refused to disarm and still occupy police stations in the countryside. Konare stressed, however, that the AU was not trying to restore Aristide to power by offering him refuge in Africa. “He is from the first black republic, and a mother never rejects its child,” Konare said in a statement. * Reuterswww.reuters.com/ January 20, 2005 Some See Quagmire for Brazil Troops in Haiti By Angus MacSwan SAO PAULO, Brazil (Reuters) – It all started so optimistically for Brazil’s peacekeeping mission in Haiti. Back in June, a grateful population welcomed the troops. Brazil’s soccer superstars showed up to play a special “peace game” and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva visited the blighted Caribbean country to spread his brand of good cheer. The mission would show that Brazil was ready to assume a role as a regional diplomatic power with a more socially aware approach than the heavy-handed United States. It is turning out to be more complicated than that. Armed factions in Haiti have grown more violent and clashes between peacekeepers and Haitians have raised the risk that people will turn against the foreign troops. Haiti’s infrastructure is in ruins and promised helpings of international aid are slow to appear, exacerbating tensions. In Brazil, critics say the venture could become Lula’s first foreign policy mistake. “Haiti is a quagmire. I think that Brazil should find a way out,” said Ivan Valente, a congressman in Lula’s ruling Workers Party who opposed the deployment. The Brazilians arrived to lead the U.N. mission in June, following a rebellion that forced elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile in February. An interim government has promised elections by the end of this year. The military deployment was Brazil’s largest since World War II. It was part of a foreign policy drive by Lula that would give the South American giant an international influence which matched its size — and boost its bid for a permanent seat on a revamped U.N. Security Council. Brazil stressed Haiti’s problems were social and economic and that while foreign troops could provide security, the country needed rebuilding for any lasting solution. The interim government and some U.S. officials chided the U.N. force for failing to disarm former soldiers and pro-Aristide gangs who have fought frequent street battles. Brazilian officers complained they were hampered by a slow troop buildup. About 6,000 soldiers and 1,400 police are now there, still 1,000 short of the authorized U.N. contingent. “I refuse to use blind violence without any planning or strategy, which could create many innocent victims because that could trigger an unbearable climate throughout the country,” force commander General Augusto Heleno Ribeiro told Haiti’s Radio Metropole, responding to the criticism. But over the last month the soldiers have raided dangerous slums to search for weapons, been attacked by angry mobs, and fought gunmen over police posts and other points around the capital Port-au-Prince. “NIGHTMARISH FEAR” A report by the University of Miami’s human rights center released on Wednesday said as the violence grew worse, Haitians were living in a “nightmarish fear.” “UN police and soldiers, unable to speak the language of most Haitians, are overwhelmed by the firestorm,” it said. Lula’s adviser for foreign affairs, Marco Aurelio Garcia, has warned a new crisis could erupt if the international community fails to deliver $1 billion in promised funds. Brazilian opponents of the mission say it gives legitimacy to what they see as a U.S.-engineered coup against Aristide. “The Brazilians can be seen as an occupation force and instead of being against the real destroyers — Haiti’s elite and U.S. imperialism — the people could turn against us,” Congressman Valente said. Money and resources would be better spent on Brazil’s own problems of poverty and crime — or sending troops into Rio de Janeiro’s violent slums, they say. Congressman Antonio Carlos Pannunzio of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party said the Lula government had underestimated the situation. “Lula is obsessed with a permanent seat at the U.N. and he thinks Brazil leading the peacekeeping force is going to get it for us,” Pannunzio said. Still, the Haiti mission has had little impact on Lula’s high approval ratings at home, which have been boosted by a booming domestic economy. And analyst Luis Bitencourt of the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington said Brazil had been right to assume a global role and responsibilities. If it has to pull out of Haiti because of U.N. failings, its image as a nonaggressive power would not be tarnished. If its soccer diplomacy works and aid arrives, it will look good. “Brazil has already acquired considerable political and strategic capital,” Bitencourt said. (Additional reporting by Natuza Nery in Brasilia.) © Reuters 2005 * Daily Nation, Barbadoswww.nationnews.com OUR CARIBBEAN Haiti’s agony – mixed signals by RICKEY SINGH January 20, 2005 LAST FRIDAY, in discussing “democratic governance” and President George Bush’s leadership preferences, I concluded on the note that: “There remains the problem of Haiti, where a United States-created interim regime seems incapable of promoting an environment for peace and democratic governance.”. On the previous day (January 13), the, in a report on Minister of Foreign Affairs Dame Billie Miller’s participation, on behalf of CARICOM, in a United Nations (UN) Security Councilmeeting on the Haitian crisis situation, quoted her as lamenting: “Insecurity and volatility persist. . . . The traditional clamour for a change in government is once again being raised. Hopeless and joblessness combine with the easy availability of weapons to fill the ranks of the illegally armed groups. . . .” As one whose coverage often deals with developments in Haiti and CARICOM’s responses, I can relate to the concerns expressed by Dame Miller. What, however, I have found to be rather surprising, is her telling the Security Council meeting of CARICOM’s backing for the call by Secretary General Kofi Annan for an increase in UN peacekeeping force in Haiti. Of what value is such “endorsement” when CARlCOM itself remains divided on the vital issue of collective engagement – as distinct from a few feeble and contradictory bilateral initiatives – with the interim regime of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue in Port-au-Prince. I am also unaware of any CARICOM member state having contributed a single detachment of police or army personnel to help in the peace-keeping efforts in that troubled, poverty-stricken Caribbean land. Perhaps Dame Billie, who last year headed a CARICOM fact-finding ministerial team to Haiti, may also enlighten us about the position that Barbados had adopted when the sensitive issue of CARICOM’s call for an independent probe into the circumstances of the February 29, 2004, removal from power of President Jean- Bertrand Aristide first surfaced at a meeting of the Organisation of American States. Before the Dame’s intervention at the UN Security Council meeting, Jamaica’s Foreign Minister, K.D. Knight, had stated in Guyana while attending a meeting of the CARICOM Council of Ministers, that Haiti’s return to the councils of CARICOM would have to await the outcome of new elections and functioning of established democratic norms. “Democracy goes beyond election”, said Minister Knight, stressing that “it has to do with how people are able to participate in power. . . . We are waiting to see if the democratic process is to arrive soon, and we remain concerned over the humanitarian situation in Haiti. . .” The reality is that while CARICOM supports Kofi Annan’s call for urgent strengthening of the UN peace-keeping mission in Haiti, according to Dame Billie: and CARICOM is content to await the outcome of new elections to assess the state of democratic governance — as articulated by Minister Knight — the plight of the mass of poverty-stricken Haitians continue to worsen in aclimate of violence and fear. Latest human rights assessments, as of a week ago, in post-Aristide Haiti from the highly credible London-based Amnesty International and United States-based Human Rights Watch on the state of human rights and tragic conditions of suffering Haitians, make very disturbing reading. Both the second-term Bush team and CARICOM, as well as a very concerned partner like Canada, should be engaged in new initiatives with the Organisation of American States and UN.
Alpha Konaré, Thabo Mbeki and Jean-Bertra nd Aristide Meet to discuss Haiti’s Future Agence Haïtienne de Presse – Haitian Press Agency – AHP January 19, 2005 A meeting between Alpha Konaré, Thabo Mbeki and Jean-Bertrand Aristide: the objective is to work for the restoration of peace and democracy in Haiti Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2005 (AHP)- The African Union is ready to become involved in the Haitian crisis to facilitate the return of peace to Haiti and to pave the way for elections in this African country located outside of Africa. The Chairperson of the African Union Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré, made these comments at the conclusion of a meeting in Pretoria with South African President Thabo Mbeki and exiled President Jean Bertrand Aristide. Mr. Konaré said he would like to lead discussions to define the role that his organization might play in efforts to resolve the crisis that has been plaguing Haiti since the sudden departure of President Aristide. The AU would like to create conditions that could lead to the election of a democratic government in Haiti, said the organization’s head. During this meeting, President Aristide said he is supporting the initiative of the African Union. He said he understands the role that this organization could play together with other organizations such as CARICOM and the UN toward resolving the problem arising from the events of February 29. “The Haitian people would have very much liked to have been present to thank Mr. Mbeki and Mr. Konaré for the efforts they are making to help resolve the crisis”, said Mr. Aristide, who said he is committing himself in the name of the Haitian people to acting with the AU to restore peace and constitutional order in Haiti. For his part, Thabo Mbeki recalled that it was at the request of the AU and CARICOM that South Africa welcomed Mr. Aristide as a guest of the South African government. What is essential for Haiti today is to begin a national dialogue and a process of negotiation to reach a political solution, said President Mbeki. The situation in Haiti will also be the focus of talks in Paris between Argentine President Nestor Kirchner and French President Jacques Chirac.
* Haitian Police Engaged in Summary Executions – NCHR Denounced Agence Haïtienne de Presse – Haitian Press Agency – AHP January 19, 2005 A leader of the former opposition to Aristide states that police officers are carrying out summary executions assisted by civilian auxiliaries Port-au-Prince, January 18, 2005 (AHP)-Jean Nazaire Thidé, leader of Ranfò (National Alliance of Democratic Forces) on Tuesday denounced the summary executions that are carried out, he said, by officers of the national police in collaboration with ”attachés” (civilian auxiliaries of the police). “I am astonished to find that the police today are continuing to summarily execute citizens”, declared Mr. Thidé, adding that many individuals have been killed even though they had already been subdued by the police. He also deplored that some human rights organizations that are normally very quick to react, have chosen to remain silent about the cases of summary executions and the return in full force of the “attachés”. Jean Nazaire Thidé advocated respect for the rights of all Haitians. “We did not wage this struggle in order to launch a wave of killings and executions, but rather to pave the way for the rule of justice”, said Mr. Thidé. The alliance leader had recently called for the departure of the interim Prime Minister and for him to be replaced by a figure well-known in the world of media. Ronald St-Jean, coordinator of the GDP (Group for the Defense of the Rights of Political prisoners), on Monday denounced what he called a Machiavellian plan devised by a human rights organization reputed to be close to the government, to try to trivialize the case of Jimmy Charles, whose bullet-ridden body was found in a morgue after he had been in police custody. Ronald St-Jean indicated that this plan will not succeed, because he is already holding talks with MINUSTAH that he expects will lead to an autopsy being carried outas soon as possible on the corpse of Jimmy Charles, to prevent any confusion from developing. Senior officials of NCHR, the human rights organization referred to by the GDP director, are still refusing to react to the allegations made against them.
Haitian Police – PNH – Accused of Eliminating Witnesses of Brutality Agence Haïtienne de Presse – Haitian Press Agency – AHP January 19, 2005 Consternation following the murder of a journalist in Cité de Dieu during a police operation: the mother of the victim accuses the police of having acted deliberately to eliminate an embarrassing witness Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2005 (AHP)- The mother of a journalist murdered during a Haitian police intervention in ”Village de Dieu”, Port-au-Prince accused officers of the force of having summarily executed their son. Abdias Jean, correspondent for WKAT 1360 radio in Miami and a law student as well, was killed Friday while he was covering the police sweep that resulted in two other deaths. According to Mme. Raymonde Jean, the police murdered her son because he was a witness to the abuses committed by the police in Cité de Dieu. “He was eliminated despite the fact that he had been clearly identified”, she said. She denounced the indiscriminate actions of the police when it intervenes in the populist districts. For her part, National Police spokesperson, Jessy Cameau Coicou, rejected any responsibility on the part of the police force in the killing of the journalist. “These are nothing more than gratuitous accusations against the PNH (Haitian National Police)”, Ms. Coicou indicated. The police force has nothing to do with the cases of summary executions and arson attacks on homes of activists who are being sought by the police, she insisted. The police spokesperson also said that the police have no complaints with the press, and she invited members of the public and journalists alike who are victims of abuses by the police to file a complaint against any officer responsible for abuses. During the police operation that took a tragic turn for Abdias Jean, PNH officers also mistreated a news crew from the private television broadcaster Télé Ginen, confiscating a video camera and only returning it several hours later but without the cassette containing video of the police action. The majority of people killed during these police sweeps in the populist districts are generally described by the PNH as bandits who are killed during an exchange of gunfire. However several other sectors have accused the police of engaging in summary executions, in collaboration with attachés (civilian irregular police auxiliaries). Some residents have even accused the police of setting up a unit called “the zero tolerance brigade”. These revelations have been backed up by the recent statements of a leader of the former opposition to Aristide. Jean Nazaire Thidé of the National Alliance of Democratic Forces, spoke out Tuesday to denounce the summary executions carried out, he said, by Haitian police officers working together with ”attachés”. “I am astonished to find that the police continue even today to engage in summary executions of Haitians”, said Mr. Thidé, adding that many individuals have been killed even after having been subdued by the police.
Haitian Police Implicated in Corridor Bassia Killings Agence Haïtienne de Presse – Haitian Press Agency – AHP January 19, 2005 At least four young people have been killed at Corridor Bassia: the police are suspects in the incident Port-au-Prince, January 19, 2005 (AHP)- At least four youths were killed and several homes of members of Populist Organizations were set on fire during a vast police operation conducted Tuesday at Corridor Bassia, on Félix Street in Port-au-Prince. Residents of these populist districts charged that officers of CIMO (The specialized Unit for Intervention and Maintaining Order) as well as attachés had summarily executed the youths before setting several homes on fire. One of the youths was killed as he returned from work at the National Port Authority, said local residents. The mother of Clairmond Déricé, one of the young people killed on Félix Street, accused the police of having carried off the body of her son. The families of the other victims denounced the executions which have become almost a daily routine in the populist districts. They also criticized what they called the complicit silence of some human rights organizations with regard to these killings. ****** 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. See, and www.margueritelaurent.com/law/lawpress.html or, www.margueritelaurent.com/pressclips/newsessaysreflections.html *************** To subscribe or unsubscribe, contact Erzilidanto@aol.com |
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