Haiti’s Aristide should be greeted with prosecution, not praise

Haiti’s Aristide should be greeted with prosecution, not praise

By Michael Deibert

The indictment late last year by the International Criminal Court (ICC) of six prominent Kenyans for their roles in violence following that country’s disputed 2007 elections was a welcome sign for those seeking to hold politicians accountable for their crimes. Though the ICC has badly bungled what should have been its showpiece case - against the ruthless Congolese militia leader Thomas Lubanga - the Kenya indictments nevertheless represented a welcome extension of its continuing mission.

To those of us who have seen Haiti’s political convulsions first-hand over the years, that Caribbean nation makes a compelling case for attention by the ICC as perpetrators of human rights abuses often go unpunished or are even rehabilitated in subsequent governments. With one despotic former ruler (Jean-Claude Duvalier) having recently returned and another (Jean-Bertrand Aristide) announcing his intention to do so, one Haitian case, in particular, would seem tailor-made for the ICC’s attention.

In February 2004, in the midst of a chaotic rebellion against Mr. Aristide's government, the photojournalist Alex Smailes and I found ourselves in the central Haitian city of Saint Marc, at the time the last barrier between Aristide and a motley collection of once-loyal street gangs and former soldiers who were sweeping down from the country's north seeking to oust him.

Several days earlier, on 7 February, an armed anti-Aristide group, the Rassemblement des militants conséquents de Saint Marc (Ramicos), based in the neighborhood of La Scierie, had attempted to drive government forces from the town, seizing the local police station, which they set on fire.

On 9 February, the combined forces of the Police Nationale de Haiti (PNH), the Unité de Sécurité de la Garde du Palais National (USGPN) - a unit directly responsible for the president’s personal security - and a local paramilitary organisation named Bale Wouze (Clean Sweep) retook much of the city. By 11 February, a few days before our arrival, Bale Wouze - headed by a former parliamentary representative of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas political party named Amanus Mayette - had commenced the battle to retake La Scierie. Often at Mayette’s side was a government employee named Ronald Dauphin, known to residents as "Black Ronald,”often garbed in a police uniform even though he was in no way officially employed by the police.

When Alex and I arrived in the town, we found the USGPN and Bale Wouze patrolling Saint Marc as a single armed unit. Speaking to residents there - amidst a surreal backdrop of burned buildings, the stench of human decay, drunken gang members threatening our lives with firearms and a terrified population - we soon realized that something awful had happened in Saint Marc.

According to multiple residents interviewed during that visit and a subsequent visit that I made to the town in June 2009, after government forces retook the town - and after a press conference there by Yvon Neptune, at the time Aristide’s Prime Minister and also the head of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti - a textbook series of war crimes took place.

Residents spoke of how Kenol St. Gilles, a carpenter with no political affiliation, was shot in each thigh, beaten unconscious by Bale Wouze members and thrown into a burning cement depot, where he died. Unarmed Ramicos member Leroy Joseph was decapitated, while Ramicos second-in-command Nixon François was simply shot. In the ruins of the burned-out commissariat, Bale Wouze members gang raped a 21-year-old woman, while other residents were gunned down by police firing from a helicopter as they tried to flee over a nearby mountain. A local priest told me matter-of-factly at the time of Bale Wouze that “these people don't make arrests, they kill."

According to a member of a Human Rights Watch delegation that visited Saint Marc a month after the killings, at least 27 people were murdered there between Feb. 11 and Aristide’s flight into exile at the end of the month. Her conclusion supported by the research of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, a Haitian human rights organization.

Following Aristide's overthrow, several members of Bale Wouze were lynched, while Yvon Neptune turned himself over to the interim government that ruled Haiti from March 2004 until the inauguration of President René Préval in May 2006.

Held in prison without trial until his May 2006 release on humanitarian grounds, a May 2008 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Haitian state had violated the American Convention on Human Rights in its detention of Neptune, though stressed that it was "not a criminal court in which the criminal responsibility of an individual can be examined.” Neptune ran unsuccessfully for president in Haiti’s recent elections.

After being jailed for three years without trial, Amanus Mayette was freed from prison in April 2007. Arrested in 2004, Ronald Dauphin subsequently escaped from jail, and was re-arrested during the course of an anti-kidnapping raid in Haiti's capital in July 2006. Despite several chaotic public hearings, to date, none of the accused for the killings in La Scierie has ever gone to trial. At the time of writing, Mr. Aristide himself continues to enjoy a gilded exile in South Africa, his luxurious lifestyle and protection package bankrolled by South African taxpayers.

Frustratingly for the people of St. Marc, far from being supported in their calls for justice, the events they experienced have become a political football among international political actors.

The United Nations independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, in a 2005 statement dismissed allegations of a massacre and described what occurred as "a clash", a characterization that seemed unaware of the fact that not all among those victimized had any affiliation with Haiti's political opposition.

The Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH), a U.S.-based organization, has lauded Mr. Dauphin as “a Haitian grassroots activist.” The IJDH itself maintains close links with Mr. Aristide’s U.S. attorney, Ira Kurzban, who is listed as one of the group’s founders, serves on the chairman of board of directors and whose law firm, according to U.S. Department of Justice filings, earned nearly $5 million for its lobbying work alone representing the Aristide government during the era of its worst excesses. By comparison, the firm of former U.S. congressmen Ron Dellums received the relatively modest sum of $989,323 over the same period.

When I returned to St. Marc in June of 2009, I found its residents still wondering when someone would be held accountable for the terrible crimes they had been subjected to. Amazil Jean-Baptiste, the mother of Kenol St. Gilles, said simply "I just want justice for my son.” A local victim’s rights group of survivors of the pogrom, the Association des Victimes du Génocide de la Scierie (AVIGES), formed to help advocate on residents’ behalf, but have had precious little success in what passes for Haiti’s justice system, broken and dysfunctional long before January 2010's devastating earthquake.

Though Mr. Aristide remains something of a fading star for a handful of commentators outside of Haiti- most of whom have not spent significant time in the country, cannot speak its language and have never bothered to sit down with the victims of the Aristide government's crimes there - to those of us who have seen a bit of its recent history firsthand, the words of veteran Trinidadian diplomat Reginald Dumas - a man who does know Haiti - seem apt, that Mr. Aristide "[acquired] for himself a reputation at home which did not match the great respect with which he was held abroad.''

The ICC has sometimes been criticized for acting as if war crimes and crimes against humanity are simply African problems, taking place in distant lands. The people of St. Marc, only a 90 minute flight from Miami, know differently. As Mr. Aristide currently loudly voices his desire to return to Haiti from his exile in South Africa, doubtlessly transiting several ICC signatory countries (including South Africa itself) in the process, the case of the victims of St. Marc is one admirably deserving of the ICC’s attention.


Michael Deibert is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Peace and Reconciliation Studies at Coventry University and the author of Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti (Seven Stories Press). He has been visiting and writing about Haiti since 1997.

Photo © Michael Deibert

HAITI: "We Have Never Had Justice"

HAITI: "We Have Never Had Justice"

By Michael Deibert

Inter Press Service

(Read the original article here)

ST. MARC, Jul 21, 2009 (IPS) - Amazil Jean-Baptiste remembers when they came to kill her son.

"They killed my boy and burned my boy," says Jean-Baptiste, a careworn 49-year-old who lives in a dilapidated structure without running water in this bustling port town 80 kilometres north of Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. "And I am still suffering."

It was February 2004, and Haiti was in the midst of a chaotic rebellion against the government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. North of St. Marc, a formerly loyal street gang known as the Cannibal Army had risen up against the president and, joined by former members of the country's disbanded army, proceeded to overrun police barracks and seize control of towns throughout northern Haiti.

On Feb. 7, a lightly-armed anti-Aristide group, the Rassemblement des militants conséquents de Saint-Marc (Ramicos), based in the neighbourhood of La Scierie where Amazil Jean-Baptiste lived, took advantage of the chaos to drive government forces from the town, seizing the local police station, which they then set on fire.

Two days later, the combined forces of the Police Nationale de Haiti (PNH), the Unité de Sécurité de la Garde du Palais National (USGPN) and a local paramilitary organisation named Bale Wouze ("Clean Sweep") retook much of the city. By Feb. 11, Bale Wouze - headed by a former parliamentary representative of Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas political party named Amanus Mayette- had commenced the battle to retake the La Scierie.

What would follow would raise questions about Haiti's ability to give justice to victims and punish the guilty that persist to this day.

As Amazil Jean-Baptiste returned home, she found her son, Kenol St. Gilles, a 23-year-old carpenter with no political affiliation, groaning with a bullet in each thigh. Taking him to the home of a local pastor for aid, she watched as seven armed men, including three dressed in police uniforms, accused St. Gilles of being a Ramicos militant who had shot at them. He was dragged from the house, beaten unconscious and thrown into a burning cement depot, where he died.

Residents of the town tell of other crimes - the decapitation of unarmed Ramicos member Leroy Joseph, the killing of Ramicos second-in-command Nixon François, the gang rape by Bale Wouze members of a 21-year-old woman in the ruins of the burned-out commissariat - that were allegedly committed during or immediately following the recapture of St. Marc by pro-Aristide forces.

Witnesses recount how several people were slain and tossed into the burning remnants of the Ramicos headquarters, while still others were gunned down by police firing from a helicopter as they tried to flee over a nearby mountain, Morne Calvaire.

"They came here and they massacred people," says resident Marc Ariel Narcisse, 44. "A grenade thrown into my mother's house exploded, and the house caught fire. My cousin, Bob Narcisse, was killed there."

Following those dark days, the victims of the St. Marc killings formed the Association des Victimes du Génocide de la Scierie (AVIGES) to advocate on their behalf. But their struggle has exposed the highly politicised and often unresponsive nature of justice in Haiti, a country struggling to build democratic institutions after decades of dictatorship.

Links between armed pressure groups and the spheres of official power have long been a fact of political life here.

Faustin Soulouque, who crowned himself emperor of Haiti in 1852, was supported by groups of impoverished partisans called zinglins, while the Duvalier family dictatorship that ruled from 1957 until 1986 utilised the Tontons Macoutes, a murderous paramilitary band named after a traditional Haitian boogeyman.

The government of Aristide, who returned to office in 2001 after ruling the country for two periods in the 1990s, allied itself with his own armed partisans, often referred to as chimere after a mythical fire-breathing demon.

Of these latter groups, Bale Wouze had a reputation as one of the fiercest, and, by February 2004, its links with Haiti's National Palace were largely indisputable, especially given the presence in St. Marc of the USGPN, a unit directly responsible for the president's personal security.

On Feb. 9, as St. Marc was retaken by government forces, and as security forces and Bale Wouze members patrolled its streets together, Aristide's prime minister, Yvon Neptune, also serving as the head of the Conseil Superieur de la Police Nationale d'Haiti, flew into the city, giving a press conference during which he stated that "the national police force alone cannot re-establish order".

Witnesses in La Scierie describe how one of Bale Wouze's leading members, a government employee named Ronald Dauphin, known to residents as "Black Ronald", patrolled St. Marc in a police uniform, even though he was in no way affiliated with the police.

When the author of this article visited St. Marc in February 2004, shortly after Bale Wouze's raid into La Scierie, he interviewed USGPN personnel and Bale Wouze members patrolling the city as a single armed unit in tandem the PNH. A local priest told IPS matter-of-factly at the time of Bale Wouze that, "These people don't make arrests, they kill."

Interviewed by the Miami Herald in St. Marc in February 2004, Amanus Mayette was surrounded by Bale Wouze members and proclaimed his affiliation with the organisation.

"Amanus Mayette, Black Ronald, Somoza, these people killed my son," Amazil Jean-Baptiste explains in a trembling voice, listing the names of some of those who she says took part in her son's slaying.

Following Aristide's overthrow later that month, several members of Bale Wouze were lynched as they tried to flee St. Marc, while Yvon Neptune turned himself over to the interim government that ruled Haiti from March 2004 until the inauguration of President René Préval in May 2006.

Held in prison without trial until his May 2006 release on humanitarian grounds, a May 2008 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights found the Haitian state had violated 11 separate provisions of the American Convention on Human Rights in its detention of Neptune, though stressing that it was "not a criminal court in which the criminal responsibility of an individual can be examined".

After being jailed for three years without trial, former Bale Wouze leader Amanus Mayette was freed from prison in April 2007. Arrested in 2004, Ronald Dauphin subsequently escaped from jail, and was re-arrested during the course of an anti-kidnapping raid in Haiti's capital in July 2006. Despite several chaotic public hearings, to date, none of the accused for the killings in La Scierie has ever gone to trial.

"In our system, the criminal becomes a victim because the system doesn't work," laments Pierre Espérance, director of the Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains (RNDDH), which has pushed for criminal prosecutions in the La Scierie case.

Espérance himself survived a 1999 assassination attempt for which no one was ever prosecuted.

"But historically, the authorities here are so involved in corruption and human rights violations they feel very comfortable with impunity," he says.

According to RNDDH figures, nearly 81 percent of Haiti's prisoners are waiting for their cases to be heard before a judge, a situation that some hope may be improved by the re-opening of Haiti's school for magistrates, which recently renewed activities after being shuttered for many years.

Frustratingly for the people of St. Marc, however, the events of February 2004 have become a political football among Haiti's various political actors.

The United Nations independent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, in a 2005 statement dismissed allegations of a massacre and described what occurred as "a clash", a characterisation that seemed unaware of the fact that not all among those victimised had any affiliation with Haiti's political opposition.

Conversely, a member of a Human Rights Watch delegation that visited St. Marc a month after the killings concluded that at least 27 people had been murdered by pro-government forces between Feb. 11 and Aristide's flight into exile.

Their claims are treated with shrugging indifference by the Préval government and the United Nations, and the people of La Scierie appear to be resigned that their struggle for justice will be a long, though hopefully not fruitless, one.

"We need justice, we demand justice, because we have never had justice," says Amazil Jean-Baptiste, as another member of AVIGES stands nearby, wearing a t-shirt reading 'We won't forget 11 February 2004' in Haiti's native Kreyol language.

"I just want justice for my son," she says.

Open letter to Louis Joinet from Charliénor Thompson

An open letter was recently sent to Louis Joinet, the United Nations' independent expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti on behalf of the victims of the February 2004 massacre that took place in the northern Haitian town of Saint Marc.

Readers of this blog will remember the Saint Marc killings as one of the most odious human rights abuses to take place in Haiti as the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide sputtered to an end that month. Following the lead of street gangs formerly loyal to the president in Gonaives (who rose up to avenge the murder of their leader, Amiot “Cubain” Metayer and drove government forces from the town on February 5), the anti-Aristide group Rassemblement des militants conséquents de Saint-Marc (Ramicos), based in the neighborhood of La Scierie, two days later took advantage of the chaos to use the weapons at their disposal—mostly light sidearms and pistols—to overrun the Saint Marc police station, where they freed all the prisoners before setting the structure on fire.

On February 11, however, pro-government forces recaptured the town, and members of the Unite de Securite de la Garde du Palais National d’Haiti and the local pro-Aristide Bale Wouze paramilitary gang set about on a multi-day mass killing of Aristide opponents, as well as politically unaffiliated civilians, during which authoritative accounts list at least 27 people as having been slain and a number of women raped. One of the leaders of Bale Wouze, former Fanmi Lavalas party Deputy Amanus Mayette, a man who witnesses in Saint Marc have charged actively participated in the killings, was freed from prison without trial last month.

The letter to Louis Joinet, written by a former Ramicos member named Charliénor Thompson, now the coordinator of the Association des Victimes du Génocide de la Scierie (AVIGES), named for the neighborhood in Saint Marc where many of the killings took place, with some cause takes the United Mission in Haiti (known by its acronym, MINUSTAH) to task for what some victims of human rights abuses during Haiti's 2001-2004 government charge is the organization's somewhat cavalier attitude when it comes to prosecuting the responsible and defending those victimized in such incidents as the killings in Saint Marc.

Thompson writes that, with Amanus Mayette and other perpetrators now walking free, “what justice can we expect? Who will be able to testify freely while the assassins are free and circulate with total impunity?" The letter then goes on to speak of the fear that residents of Saint Marc live in, afraid that now, as they have been pushing for justice for over three years, they make again become victims of those who attacked them in the past.

Holding people indefinitely without trial is wrong, but equally wrong is the denial of a day in court for people who have suffered as grievously as those of Saint Marc have. The victims of the killings and other violations that took place in Saint Marc in February 2004 deserve to have a lawful, transparent day in court with those that they accuse of such heinous crimes.

In the interest of making the ground-level perspective on this issue more widely available, below please find the unedited text of Charliénor Thompson's letter to Louis Joinet.


Lettre ouverte au juge Louis Joinet
Charliénor THOMPSON
19, Rue Briand Charles, Saint Marc, Haïti
Cell. 781 4794 E-mail : tcharlienor@yahoo.fr
Saint Marc, le 12 juin 2007

Monsieur Louis JOINET, Juge
Expert Indépendant Pour Haïti
Du Conseil des Droit Humains des Nations Unies

Via : Edmond MULLET
Chef de la MINUSTHA
Représentant du Secrétaire Général
Des Nations Unies.

Monsieur le Juge Expert Indépendant,

Nous vous écrivons à titre de coordonnateur d'un groupe dénommé AVIGES qui rassemble les victimes des évènements survenus à Saint Marc, au cours du mois de février 2004 sous la présidence de M. Jean Bertrand Aristide, ordonnés et coordonnés par le Premier Ministre d'alors M. Yvon Neptune. Nous apprécierions que vous puissiez nous accorder quelques minutes de votre attention, le temps de la lecture de la présente, malgré vos obligations habituelles, entre deux missions en Haïti.

De vos divers voyages, dans notre pays, nous avons retenu que la seule visite que vous nous avez rendu, a été pour soutenir la demande en récusation du tribunal de Saint Marc introduite par M. Neptune inculpé dans les massacres de Saint Marc.

Nous suivons avec attention le déroulement de vos missions dans notre pays, et nous avons noté qu'elles sont toutes de courtes durées. En lisant les comptes-rendus de la presse et en écoutant avec intérêt vos prises de positions dans les médias haïtiens, nous avons du mal à comprendre l'objet de votre mission. Nous ignorons les termes de références du contrat vous liant aux Nations Unies, aussi pour nous aider à comprendre serait-il important que nous sachions quels sont les termes de référence de vos intervention dans notre pays. Etes-vous " Inspecteur International des Geôles Haïtienne " ou " Expert chargé de conseiller et de faire des recommandations à l'État Haïtien pour la réforme du système judiciaire et le respect des droits de la personne "? La question peut paraître saugrenue mais elle est pertinente si l'on tient compte de vos déclarations, lors des entrevues que vous avez accordé en Haïti, concernant vos principales préoccupations.

Pour nous autres victimes, qui vivons en Haïti et qui avons introduit une plainte auprès du système judiciaire de notre Pays, depuis plus de trois (3) ans, nous demeurons perplexe et nous nous demandons : "Qui se soucie de notre cas ? "

Notre cause traîne, prise dans un labyrinthe de procédures. Nous nous posons la question sur ce qui peut inciter le gouvernement de notre pays à afficher un tel mépris à l'égard des victimes.

Nous avons vu et nous continuons à voir un ballet d'experts s'activer et se préoccuper du cas des bourreaux et faire fi de la situation des victimes. Leur suffit-il, pour se donner bonne conscience, de savoir que nous avons la chance d'être encore en vie après les horreurs et tribulations que nous avons vécues. Pensent-ils pouvoir se mettre à l'abri de toute critique pour avoir prononcer des phrases sibyllines du genre de celle que vous dites en alléguant que vous n'aviez par ailleurs aucune sympathie pour ce monsieur (en parlant de Amanus Mayette), tout en oblitérant les circonstances particulièrement confuse ayant entouré sa mise en liberté.

Que fait ou que devrait faire le système des Nations Unies qui vous emploie ? En quoi consiste ou devrait consister le rôle de ce système et des experts qu'il nous envoie ? De quelle type d'assistance notre Pays a-t-il besoin, dans les circonstances actuelles, particulièrement difficiles de notre vie de peuple ? A quoi sert réellement, en fin de compte toute la " sollicitude" dont nous semblons faire l'objet ? Une réponse doit être trouvée à nos interrogations de citoyens haïtiens.

Nous avons cru déceler dans vos prises de position une pointe d'humanisme quand vous compariez les prisonniers du Cap Haïtien à un tas de vers empilés sur une motte de terre. Pour que vous souciez de notre sort, au lieu d'être de simples victimes devrions nous plutôt être des prisonniers ?

En attendant une réponse nous voudrions rappeler le caractère non violent de notre action pour la justice et la paix ainsi que certains faits vécus qui sont à la base de nos revendications de notre action en justice.

Parmi les faits se rapportant aux événements de février 2004 on peut retenir, notamment :

des jeunes gens désarmés esquissant des pas de " Break Dancing Afro Américain" pour tenter

d'éviter l'impact des balles meurtrières tirées depuis l'hélicoptère du gouvernement d'alors ;

un jeune homme blessé enlever des bras de sa mère pour être jeté vivant dans un brasier ;

une jeune mère se faire violer dans le commissariat de police de Saint Marc une semaine après avoir accouché ;

des cadavres dépecés par des chiens dans les mornes de la scierie après les tueries organisées par le police national et les gangs armés aux ordres du gouvernement Aristide / Neptune ;

un jeune homme arrêté à moins de 50 mètres du commissariat de police de Saint Marc se faire arracher les globes oculaires à l'aide d'une fourchette, être invité ensuite à se mettre à table pour une partie de cartes avec ses bourreaux et être finalement tué ;

un jeune homme traîné vivant attaché à l'arrière d'une camionnette sur plusieurs kilomètres dans les rues de la ville pour être finalement brûlé vif avant de rendre son dernier soupir ;

l'incendie d'une demeure ou vivaient seul deux vieillards quasi nonagénaires qui seraient morts brûlés vif sans l'intervention de certains voisins ;

un jeune homme désarmé se faire brûler avec sa compagne enceinte de huit mois

Etc.…

Tous ces meurtres et crimes ont été exécutés du 9 au 29 février 2004 sous les ordres de MM. Jean Bertrand Aristide Ex Président de la République et Yvan Neptune Ex Premier Ministre d'Haïti. Nous en voulons pour preuve le fait que certains prisonniers de Saint Marc ont été conduits au Palais National ainsi que les 9 heures de conversation téléphonique du Premier Ministre, sur son cellulaire personnel, avec les criminels qu'il avait installé à Saint Marc (60% de ses appels pour la période sus cité), ceci a été révélé par l'instruction de l'affaire.

Aujourd'hui, nous, victimes des actes d'horreurs cités plus haut vivons sous la menace constante des criminels qui ont tous été libérés sous la pression, notamment, de certains organismes de la société civile internationale.

Pour arriver à leurs fins les prévenus, inculpés par le juge d'instruction, ont utilisé tous les moyens dilatoires que leur procuraient les procédures judiciaires. Ils ont aussi utilisé les pressions médiatiques et les opinions d'experts pour faire accréditer la version de la prison préventive prolongée, alors que les délais sont dus aux faiblesses et au mauvais fonctionnement de l'appareil judiciaire dont la bonne marche est une responsabilité du gouvernement.

Actuellement les criminels en liberté ne lésinent pas sur les moyens de pression sur nous autres victimes et sur les témoins de leurs actes barbares. Ils font même jouer leur accointance avec certains tenants du pouvoir politique actuel pour nous intimider.

Aujourd'hui à quelle justice devons nous nous attendre ? Qui pourra témoigner librement alors que les assassins sont libres et circulent en toute impunité. La majorité des habitants de Saint Marc ont peur. Même ceux qui ont été directement victimes des actes cités plus haut ont peur. Les victimes ont envie de fuir la ville et les témoins se terrent.

Quand l'État nous fera-t-il bénéficier des bienfaits de la justice que nous réclamons ? Dans les circonstances actuelles, sous quelle forme viendra-t-elle ?

La communauté internationale, via la MINUSTHA, s'intéresse-t-elle vraiment à voir s'établir en Haïti un état de droit ? Les préoccupations des haïtiens au sujet de la justice sont elles prises en compte par la communauté internationale ? Alors que les haïtiens perçoivent l'insécurité et l'impunité comme le plus grand mal qui ronge notre société, on croirait, à vous entendre, que le plus grand problème du pays est celui du système carcéral! Les experts de passage des Nations Unies condamnent le mauvais état des prisons ainsi que la mauvaise gestion des lieux de détentions alors que le responsable de la gestion des prisons est le gouvernement assisté par une batterie d'experts placés au sein même de ce système carcéral. Les experts de passage des Nations Unies condamnent la mauvaise gestion de la justice alors que tous les circuits de notre système judiciaire regorgent d'expert de ces mêmes Nations Unies qui sont à demeure dans le pays. Nous serions reconnaissants à qui nous permettrait au moins de comprendre.

Nous craignons d'être vu à travers un modèle et nous ne savons pas dans quel modèle l'ONU place les évènements qui se sont produits en Haïti. Nous assistons à une désagrégation de la machine étatique et plus particulièrement, en ce qui nous concerne, du système judiciaire et nous n'avons aucune idée des recommandations au Gouvernement de notre Pays ni des actions concrètes prévues pour redresser la situation. Nous sommes inquiets pour notre avenir et nous recommandons une prudence extrême dans l'emploi des modèles, et dans l'application de mesures toutes faites venant de l'extérieur : l'expérience notamment du Rwanda étant là pour nous interpeller tous.

Nous vous communiquons en annexe deux textes qui vous permettront de vous faire une idée de ce qui s'est réellement passé à Saint Marc : l'un est un communiqué de l'Associations des Entrepreneurs de l'Artibonite daté du 13 février 2004, l'autre une lettre ouverte d'une des victimes.

Nous, haïtiens, sommes familiers des paradoxes de la France éternelle et généreuse. Après nous avoir donné les grandes idées de 1789 et nous avoir envoyé le commissaire Sonthonax qui donna sont appui à la révolte en consacrant officiellement par décret la liberté général des esclaves ; n'a-t-elle pas envoyé l'armée expéditionnaire avec Leclerc et Rochambeau pour rétablir l'esclavage et capturer le Général Toussaint Louverture qui avait cru pouvoir élargir ces idées généreuses à toutes les races. Après avoir compris que Jean Bertrand Aristide était un criminel indigne de la fonction de président ; n'est elle pas devenue la terre d'asile pour deux criminels inculpés dans les évènements de Saint Marc comme elle l'est pour Jean Claude Duvalier.

Juste avant de terminer, permettez nous de soumettre à votre sagacité cette phrase de l'autre : « Eprouver dans sa chair l'injustice commise contre quiconque dans le monde est la plus belle qualité d'un révolutionnaire » En la circonstance nous dirions « de tout juge soucieux des droits de la personne ».

Nous vous remercions d'avoir pris le temps de lire cette longue missive. Nous espérons qu'elle aura la vertu d'enrichir vos réflexions de juge - expert et qu'elle permettra au système des Nations Unies de mûrir ses actions dans le monde en général et en Haïti en particulier.
Dans l'espoir de pouvoir un jour bénéficier de l'attention et de la compréhension des experts internationaux si influents dans notre pays nous vous présentons, monsieur le Juge Expert Indépendant, nos salutations distinguées.

Charliénor THOMPSON
Coordonnateur de l'AVIGES

PJ : Communiqué du 13 février 2004 de l'AEA
Lettre ouverte de Franck Paultre
CC : Le Parlement Haïtien
Le Gouvernement Haïtien
La Presse
Les Organismes des Droits Humains
Le Public

Another journalist slain in Haiti as an accused murderer walks free

From Haiti we hear that Alix Joseph, director of Radio-Télé Provinciale, a private radio station in the northern Haitian port town of Gonaives, was shot and killed there on Wednesday night by two unidentified gunmen as he sat in a car with his fiancée, the Associated Press and Haiti’s Radio Kiskeya are reporting. Evidently, some in the town, which is rife with competing armed politico-criminal factions of varying loyalties, had recently grown irked at the station’s reporting on corruption issues in the region. In some aspects, the killing is worryingly reminiscent of the slaying of government Deputy Marc-Andre Durogène in February 2002.

The killing comes following what is possibly the darkest day for the Haitian judiciary since René Préval assumed the presidency last year: The liberation without trial of former Fanmi Lavalas party Deputy Amanus Mayette, a man accused of the most atrocious human rights abuses as the government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide sputtered to an end in February 2004. As one of the leaders of the pro-Aristide Bale Wouze paramilitary gang in the northern Haitian town of Saint-Marc, Mayette has been accused by multiple witnesses of being one of the organizers of the multi-day mass killing of Aristide opponents - as well as politically unaffiliated civilians - in the town over that month when, by authoritative accounts, at least 27 people were slain . Mayette, accounts of eyewitnesses claim, also helped to decapitate Leroy Joseph in front of his wife and children in Saint-Marc that month. The result of some rather curious maneuvering by public prosecutor Rocky Pierre, the release occurs shamefully on the heels of the death of Hugues Saint-Pierre, the president of the Cour d’Appel des Gonaïves, in a road accident and has occasioned protests by the victims and families of victims of the 2004 killings.

Those victims of Saint Marc still cry out for justice but, alas, there still seems to be precious little of that in today’s Haiti.