Press Release

Mario Joseph, Managing Attorney
Bureau des Avocats Internationaux
45 Avenue John Brown
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
011-509-221-6200
011-509-554-4284
avokahaiti@aol.com

 

Haiti: Systematic Government Attacks On Political Dissidents/United Nations Peacekeepers Fail to Intervene, Sometime Participate in Repression

Over the past 13 months, the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) has systematically attacked suspected supporters of the Lavalas movement, by shooting at unarmed demonstrations, illegally arresting and detaining suspected dissidents and carrying out lethal raids in poor neighborhoods and in prisons. MINUSTAH, the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti, fails to fulfill its mandate to protect citizens from this violence, and has in fact participated in illegal persecution of IGH opponents. In the midst of this official violence, Haitian women have been subjected to a wave of rapes, many of them politically-motivated.

The Haitian police regularly fire on peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations. This happened, among other times, on September 30, 2004, and February 28, 2005. Although the Haitian police and the UN regularly announce investigations into these incidents, not a single police officer, to our knowledge, has been arrested or sanctioned. Police and prison guards opened fire on a non-lethal prison demonstration on December 1, 2004, killing dozens of prisoners, according to witnesses, journalists and human rights groups. The IGH has blocked any independent investigation into this massacre.

The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (International Lawyers’ Office or BAI), represents over 100 political prisoners in Haiti, including former Ministers and other officials of Haiti’s ousted constitutional government, prominent musicians and grassroots activists. All of these people are being held illegally, in violation of fundamental rights guaranteed by the Haitian Constitution and International Human Rights law. Most political prisoners are denied access to the courts. When judges do order dissidents freed, the IGH often ignores the order or forces prison officials to refuse it, and sometimes retaliates against the judge who issued the order.

Many dissidents, especially those living in poor neighborhoods, never make it to prison- the police simply shoot them. This practice has been documented by among others, Amnesty International, the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami Law School, and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. The police even shoot at neutral witnesses: on January 14, police executed journalist Abdias Jean after he observed a lethal police assault on the Cite de Dieu neighborhood.

This violence has spawned a massive upsurge in the amount of rapes in Haiti. Some rapes have been committed by Haitian police and UN forces, but many more are committed by former soldiers of Haiti’s demobilized army, paramilitary groups and gangs. Women are often targeted for rape because they or their family members are suspected of participating in the pro-democracy movement.

MINUSTAH frequently provides backup to illegal police operations. On February 28, UN soldiers stood by while Haitian police fired on a demonstration commemorating the one year anniversary of Haiti’s coup d’etat. Following international criticism, the UN adopted a more pro-active stance, and protected demonstrators from police on March 4. However, on March 29, MINUSTAH stopped a legal demonstration commemorating the anniversary of Haiti’s Constitution, on the grounds that the demonstrators had not obtained police authorization. But Haitian law does not require police authorization, merely notice to the police, which had been given.

MINUSTAH troops have themselves made illegal arrests. On January 5, MINUSTAH arrested Jimmy Charles, without a warrant, based on an informant’s uncorroborated report. The UN handed Mr. Charles over to police, and his family found his body in the state morgue on January 13. Neither MINUSTAH nor the IGH has provided an explanation of this death to Mr. Charles’ family, despite the family’s repeated requests and a formal criminal complaint.

The Interim Government of Haiti, its international supporters and the United Nations should start promoting the rule of law in Haiti today, by ceasing the systematic attack on political dissidents, by freeing political prisoners, and by protecting Haiti’s women from rape.

For more information on human rights in Haiti, contact the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, and consult the website for the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (which contains all reports mentioned above), at www.ijdh.org.