19897: radtimes: Day of the Vigilante Stretches On in Haitian Towns (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

Even as Order Dawns in Capital, Day of the Vigilante Stretches On in
Haitian Towns

Photo:
Tiroro, left, was long known as a pro-Aristide militant. This week, he
fell afoul of vigilantes in Petit-Goâve who beat him and burned him to
death.

Reuters
By LYDIA POLGREEN
Published: March 5, 2004
The New York Times March 5

Violent mobs rule in cities away from the capital, like Petit-Goâve.

  PETIT-GOÂVE, Haiti, March 4 — After what the thugs did to his son, no
punishment seemed harsh enough to Roland Lysias.

Two months ago, loyalists of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
kidnapped his 21-year-old son, Junior, and tortured him, chopping off
his hands and feet and poking out his eyes before burning his body,
because he had supported a militant opposition group, Mr. Lysias said.

So on Wednesday, when an armed band of vigilantes found the man he said
was responsible for his son's death, a pro-Aristide militant known as
Tiroro, he watched with satisfaction, he said, as they beat him
unconscious, threw gasoline-doused tires around his neck and set him on
fire. He described how the chanting and cheering crowd threw rocks at
the man's burning body, indifferent to his screams for mercy.

"I asked for justice for my son," Mr. Lysias said, recalling the
incident on Thursday. "I feel that now I am starting to see that
justice."

More than 1,000 American marines and hundreds of French, Canadian and
Chilean troops have arrived in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince, and are
patrolling the streets to try to quell the spasms of violence that have
left more than 100 people dead since political uprisings began almost
one month ago.

The uprisings, along with intense pressure from the United States and
other countries, led Mr. Aristide to flee the country on Sunday,
plunging Haiti further into chaos.

With foreign troops very much in evidence, banks and other businesses in
the capital began to reopen on Thursday, and life started to return to
something resembling normal.

But outside the capital, in places like Petit-Goâve, a city just 30
miles from Port-au-Prince, lawlessness remains the rule.

Even when Mr. Aristide was in place, the country's justice and law
enforcement systems were corrupt, ineffective and in disarray — courts
seldom convened, and the police were demoralized and led by political
cronies. But now that even those weak institutions have fallen away,
scenes of violent revenge and wanton looting have become common.

Efforts to establish some form of interim civil authority gathered some
momentum on Thurday, with American diplomats and others forging ahead
with the plan created by the Caribbean Community, or Caricom, to set up
a tripartite council charged with selecting a seven-member Council of
Wise Men. That panel, in turn, is to recommend a prime minister who will
then establish a government of national unity and arrange for elections.


The council includes a member of the Aristide government, Leslie
Voltaire, the minister of Haitians living abroad; Paul Denis, a former
Haitian Senator and a member of opposition Democratic Platform; and
Adama Guindo, the United Nations resident coordinator.

But even as it sought to move forward in Haiti and establish a modicum
of security here, the Bush administration still found itself fighting
criticism for its role in the departure of Mr. Aristide.

At the Organization of American States, diplomats from across the
hemisphere voiced discomfort over his ouster, even as they acknowledged
his autocratic rule.

Some ambassadors questioned whether the United States had run roughshod
over the Inter-American Charter, which enshrines democratic rule in the
hemisphere and allows for emergency meetings when democratic processes
are interrupted.

No such meeting was requested for Haiti last weekend, when an American
embassy official requested a letter of resignation from Mr. Aristide and
escorted him to a waiting plane.

"The issue of whether there has been an interruption of democracy is at
the core of what the O.A.S. stands for," said Ellsworth John, the
ambassador of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. "We need to have a
debate."

Caricom representatives called for an investigation by the United
Nations, which could complicate the effort to cooperate on the Caricom
political plan or interrupt Caribbean contributions to a United Nations
civilian force.

.