Thousands killed in post-Aristide Haiti, study finds Ouster of leader led to violence: journal

Jeff Heinrich

The Montreal Gazette

Friday, September 01, 2006

MONTREAL - A study in the prestigious British medical

journal The Lancet suggests that, despite the presence

of a Canadian-led United Nations police and

peacekeeping force, 8,000 people have been killed and

35,000 women and girls have been raped since the

ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February

2004.

Montreal Haitian groups say the peer-reviewed study by

U.S. social workers confirms what the Canadian and

Quebec governments have always denied: a massive

campaign of repression against Haiti's poor under the

post-Aristide regime of Gerard Latortue, the country's

U.S.-appointed prime minister from March 2004 to last

June.

Haiti Action Montreal, an advocacy group, yesterday

decried the violence and what it says is Canada's role

in perpetuating it.

"Canada helped overthrow the elected government (of

Mr. Aristide), provided significant aid to the

installed regime (of Mr. Latortue) and led the UN

police contingent, yet refuses to take any

responsibility for the vast human rights abuses in

Haiti over the past two years," the group said in a

news release.

In the study, published online in The Lancet

yesterday, two researchers at Wayne

State University's School of Social Work, in Detroit,

interviewed 5,720 people in 1,260 households across

the impoverished Caribbean island nation during

December 2005, asking questions about their lives in

the 22 months since Mr. Aristide's ouster.

Of the 1,260 households, 23 had lost family members in

assassinations and killings since February 2004, and

94 had experienced sexual assault -- in some cases,

multiple sexual assault.

Extrapolated to the entire country, the survey

findings suggest 8,000 Haitians were killed in and

around the capital, Port-au-Prince, almost half them

killed by government forces or "outside political

actors" -- mostly armed gangs opposed to Mr. Aristide

and his Lavalas political party.

As well, the study estimated 35,000 women and girls

were sexually assaulted, more than half of them

younger than 18 years old, mostly by criminals, but

also by the Haitian National Police (14 per cent) and

armed anti-Lavalas groups (11 per per cent). Many of

the victims were "restaveks" -- unpaid child domestic

servants from rural areas who work and live in the

city.

Kidnappings and extrajudicial detentions, physical

assaults, death threats, physical threats, and threats

of sexual violence were also common, the study found.

Fourteen per cent of the people interviewed accused

foreign soldiers and police, including UN personnel,

of all three types of threats.

The UN threats were direct and verbal; simply pointing

a weapon in someone's direction in the course of duty

was not considered a threat. Of the UN soldiers

blamed, half were identified as being from Brazil or

Jordan; the study did not indicate whether Canadian

personnel were involved.

"Our results indicate that crime and systematic abuse

of human rights were common in Port-au-Prince,"

concluded the researchers, Athena Kolbe and Royce

Hutson.

"Although criminals were the most identified

perpetrators of violations, political actors and UN

soldiers were also frequently identified.

"These findings suggest the need for a systematic

response from the newly elected Haitian government,

the UN, and social service organizations to address

the legal, medical, psychological, and economic

consequences of widespread human rights abuses and

crime."

In an editorial, The Lancet lent its influential voice

to the researcher's conclusions, especially as regards

the behaviour of the UN soldiers and police.

Noting UN Secretary General Kofi Annan "has spoken out

firmly against exploitative behaviour by UN

peacekeepers" worldwide, the journal's editors said

the new study is a reminder "severely traumatized

populations (like Haiti's) remain vulnerable, and as

the authors show, "suffering does not stop when

peacekeepers arrive.

"UN peacekeepers must no longer add to that

suffering."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2006