Massacre of Haiti innocents
The shaky peace that has held since February's election was shattered two days
ago by a shanty town bloodbath of men, women and children, reports Reed Lindsay
in Port-au-Prince
Reed Lindsay
Sunday July 16, 2006
Observer
The killings began before dawn. Men armed with automatic rifles walked through
the hillside slum of Grand Ravine, warning of a fire and yelling for residents
to come out of their cinder-block and sheet-metal shacks. Those who obeyed were
gunned down.
Sunday July 16, 2006
Observer
The killings began before dawn. Men armed with automatic rifles walked through
the hillside slum of Grand Ravine, warning of a fire and yelling for residents
to come out of their cinder-block and sheet-metal shacks. Those who obeyed were
gunned down.
Several hours later, Haitian morgue workers and UN peacekeepers from Sri Lanka
piled bodies in one of the slum's main thoroughfares, a rocky stream bed at the
bottom of the ravine after which the neighbourhood is named. The body count
totalled 21, including three women and four children. Most of the victims were
killed with a bullet to the head.
Yves Jean-Philippe, a 56-year-old street vendor, was found in a dirt courtyard,
his eye socket ripped apart by a bullet. Alnosia Desir, wife of a Christian
pastor, was shot in the mouth and throat in her bedroom. The body of Jean
Willerme Sanon, 12, lay face down on a twisting pathway, his head split in half.
'What is shocking is that all victims appear to have been innocents. We're
talking about women and little children - these were no bandits,' said Jean
Gabriel Ambrose, the Port-au-Prince JP whose job is to verify the names and ages
of victims of violent crimes, along with the cause of death, before the bodies
are taken to the morgue.
The massacre was as unexpected as it was gruesome. For several weeks, rival
gangs had exchanged fire in a turf war over control of the slum. But the
massacre that took place last Friday was so arbitrary - family members,
neighbours, human rights observers and police all agree the victims were not
gang members - that UN and Haitian officials believe it may have been in part an
attempt to destabilise the newly elected government of President Rene Preval.
'I don't believe it was a spontaneous attack,' said Desmond Molloy, who heads
the UN's disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme in Haiti.
'This massacre creates an atmosphere of fear and, when people are afraid, it's
very hard to establish any degree of stability.'
The killings in Grand Ravine have shattered five months of relative peace that
had followed Preval's landslide victory on 7 February. The election marked the
first sign of improvement after two years of severe crisis and violence that
followed US Marines whisking former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile
in February 2004.
Preval came to power supported by many members of Haiti's tiny but powerful
elite. The daily firefights between UN peacekeepers and armed groups loyal to
Aristide in the sprawling slum of Cite Soleil stopped, and a surge in
kidnappings that had panicked foreigners and Haiti's small number of middle and
upper classes abated.
In Grand Ravine and the neighbouring slum of Martissant, opposing gangs made
peace during a 19 March football match sponsored by the UN. But the truce did
not last long. 'In recent weeks, we'd been aware of a heightening of tensions
among the gangs along political and territorial lines,' said Molloy.
On one side was a gang based in Grand Ravine associated with Aristide's Lavalas
party. On the other were two allied gangs in neighbouring slums, one based in an
area called Ti Bwa, while the second was opposed to Aristide and called the
Little Machete Army. The latter earned its name at another football match in
Martissant in August 2005 that ended in bloodshed when police officers began
shooting in the stadium and the machete-wielding gang hacked to death the
fleeing spectators.
Both residents of Grand Ravine and Haitian government officials blame the Little
Machete Army and the Ti Bwa gang for the massacre last Friday. What remains a
mystery is what provoked these gangs to murder more than 20 innocent people.
Haitian police chief Mario Andresol suspects the attack is related to the
killings at last year's football match, which appeared to be a joint effort by
the Little Machete Army, backed by rogue police officers, to eliminate the Grand
Ravine gang. Andresol arrested 15 police officers for their alleged
participation in the stadium killings, but the judge handling the case has since
released most of them, including two senior officers, Renan Etienne and Carlo
Lochard.
Some residents of Grand Ravine accuse Lochard of reuniting with the Machete Army
since his release. 'The same police officers who made the alliance with the
Machete Army are the ones who helped commit the massacre,' said Joseph Albert,
an unemployed resident of Grand Ravine. 'Lochard has given them guns and money.'
Andresol was confirmed by the senate to continue his term as police chief the
day before the massacre occurred, leading some observers to speculate that the
killings represented a warning to him.
Since the massacre, Sri Lankan peacekeepers have so far managed to ward off more
violence. But dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the area's poor residents have fled
anyway.
The UN and Haitian police have launched an investigation into the massacre, but
hopes of identifying those who pulled the trigger, not to mention those who
provided the guns, remain dim.
'This is my 13th conflict, and it's been the toughest one to find out what's
really going on,' said Molloy, a former Irish army officer who headed the UN's
disarmament programme in Sierra Leone before coming to Haiti in 2004. 'It's very
difficult to nail down the motives behind actions in Haiti and there's often a
mix of political, economic and territorial motives at play.'
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006
piled bodies in one of the slum's main thoroughfares, a rocky stream bed at the
bottom of the ravine after which the neighbourhood is named. The body count
totalled 21, including three women and four children. Most of the victims were
killed with a bullet to the head.
Yves Jean-Philippe, a 56-year-old street vendor, was found in a dirt courtyard,
his eye socket ripped apart by a bullet. Alnosia Desir, wife of a Christian
pastor, was shot in the mouth and throat in her bedroom. The body of Jean
Willerme Sanon, 12, lay face down on a twisting pathway, his head split in half.
'What is shocking is that all victims appear to have been innocents. We're
talking about women and little children - these were no bandits,' said Jean
Gabriel Ambrose, the Port-au-Prince JP whose job is to verify the names and ages
of victims of violent crimes, along with the cause of death, before the bodies
are taken to the morgue.
The massacre was as unexpected as it was gruesome. For several weeks, rival
gangs had exchanged fire in a turf war over control of the slum. But the
massacre that took place last Friday was so arbitrary - family members,
neighbours, human rights observers and police all agree the victims were not
gang members - that UN and Haitian officials believe it may have been in part an
attempt to destabilise the newly elected government of President Rene Preval.
'I don't believe it was a spontaneous attack,' said Desmond Molloy, who heads
the UN's disarmament, demobilisation and re-integration programme in Haiti.
'This massacre creates an atmosphere of fear and, when people are afraid, it's
very hard to establish any degree of stability.'
The killings in Grand Ravine have shattered five months of relative peace that
had followed Preval's landslide victory on 7 February. The election marked the
first sign of improvement after two years of severe crisis and violence that
followed US Marines whisking former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile
in February 2004.
Preval came to power supported by many members of Haiti's tiny but powerful
elite. The daily firefights between UN peacekeepers and armed groups loyal to
Aristide in the sprawling slum of Cite Soleil stopped, and a surge in
kidnappings that had panicked foreigners and Haiti's small number of middle and
upper classes abated.
In Grand Ravine and the neighbouring slum of Martissant, opposing gangs made
peace during a 19 March football match sponsored by the UN. But the truce did
not last long. 'In recent weeks, we'd been aware of a heightening of tensions
among the gangs along political and territorial lines,' said Molloy.
On one side was a gang based in Grand Ravine associated with Aristide's Lavalas
party. On the other were two allied gangs in neighbouring slums, one based in an
area called Ti Bwa, while the second was opposed to Aristide and called the
Little Machete Army. The latter earned its name at another football match in
Martissant in August 2005 that ended in bloodshed when police officers began
shooting in the stadium and the machete-wielding gang hacked to death the
fleeing spectators.
Both residents of Grand Ravine and Haitian government officials blame the Little
Machete Army and the Ti Bwa gang for the massacre last Friday. What remains a
mystery is what provoked these gangs to murder more than 20 innocent people.
Haitian police chief Mario Andresol suspects the attack is related to the
killings at last year's football match, which appeared to be a joint effort by
the Little Machete Army, backed by rogue police officers, to eliminate the Grand
Ravine gang. Andresol arrested 15 police officers for their alleged
participation in the stadium killings, but the judge handling the case has since
released most of them, including two senior officers, Renan Etienne and Carlo
Lochard.
Some residents of Grand Ravine accuse Lochard of reuniting with the Machete Army
since his release. 'The same police officers who made the alliance with the
Machete Army are the ones who helped commit the massacre,' said Joseph Albert,
an unemployed resident of Grand Ravine. 'Lochard has given them guns and money.'
Andresol was confirmed by the senate to continue his term as police chief the
day before the massacre occurred, leading some observers to speculate that the
killings represented a warning to him.
Since the massacre, Sri Lankan peacekeepers have so far managed to ward off more
violence. But dozens, perhaps hundreds, of the area's poor residents have fled
anyway.
The UN and Haitian police have launched an investigation into the massacre, but
hopes of identifying those who pulled the trigger, not to mention those who
provided the guns, remain dim.
'This is my 13th conflict, and it's been the toughest one to find out what's
really going on,' said Molloy, a former Irish army officer who headed the UN's
disarmament programme in Sierra Leone before coming to Haiti in 2004. 'It's very
difficult to nail down the motives behind actions in Haiti and there's often a
mix of political, economic and territorial motives at play.'
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006