24781: Hermantin (News) Haitian cop a witness of his troubled country's violence

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Haitian cop a witness of his troubled country's violence
By MIKE WILLIAMS
Cox News Service
Friday, April 15, 2005

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Seraphin Pierre is the policeman to the dead.

For the past year, he has been quite busy, because in tormented Haiti there 
is no shortage of dead people.

"I am the first to see them when they are brought in," he said, leaning 
against an iron gate near the entrance to Haiti's public morgue. "My job is 
to keep security here. Nobody can pass unless I allow them in."

Pierre, 31, is witness to the gruesome end product of Haiti's current chaos. 
Since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled an armed rebellion in 
February 2004, violence has swept across this Caribbean nation. Human rights 
groups estimate that hundreds of people have been killed violently here 
since September.

The bodies flow into the morgue, a squat, ugly building tucked behind the 
capital's main hospital, in fits and starts.

The violent deaths are apart from the legions of other victims in Haiti: the 
thousands of impoverished people who die from disease and starvation. Most 
of those bodies are not brought to the morgue, but slip away, uncounted, 
sometimes buried in quickly-dug graves in rural villages where families may 
not be able to afford even a rudimentary plank coffin.

Many of the bodies Pierre has seen in the past year have been burned, shot 
or torn apart by machete cuts. They are victims of political discord, gang 
warfare and gun battles between police and criminals. Some are innocent 
bystanders unlucky enough to be hit by stray bullets.

Some of the killings are intended as political statements. Those bodies come 
to the morgue beheaded or horribly burned after they have been necklaced — 
immolated by flames from a tire secured around the neck that is then set 
ablaze.

The arrival of the bodies sets off a ritual of mourning in a country where 
death is a mystical force, wrapped in the shrouds of Afro-Caribbean voodoo 
beliefs. Families throng to the morgue to recover their loved ones, begging 
in tears to be let in through Pierre's gate.

Some of the dead are high-profile criminals, including two notorious gang 
leaders recently killed in police raids in a troubled Port-au-Prince slum.

Like desperadoes from the old American West, these men fascinate the Haitian 
public. Their deaths draw flocks of curious onlookers, along with local 
journalists who hope to snap photographs of the disfigured corpses that will 
be prominently displayed in the newspapers.

In the midst of the hubub, Pierre is quiet but firm, ordering the families 
and photographers in or out, depending upon what his superiors tell him. He 
doesn't flinch from the terrible wounds he sees, mostly because he has seen 
them so often before.


More than that, he has suffered such wounds himself.

He hoists his shirt to show an inch-wide scar running from his belly button 
up his chest. He turns around and points to the bullet entry wounds on his 
back and shoulder.

Pierre was shot four years ago by another policeman, a man he says was 
promoted after the deed.

"I got shot because I told them I wasn't a politician," he said. "I didn't 
agree with Lavalas," Aristide's political party.

Pierre was driving home one day after work when it happened. He stopped in 
traffic for what he thought was an accident, then was assaulted by the other 
police officer, who was apparently waiting in ambush.

"I tried to bring a court case against him, but they shot my father," he 
said. "They left a message at my sister's house that said, 'Tell your 
brother if he wants to live in peace, never mention justice.'"

A thick, healthy man, Pierre recovered. But he was left with an infection 
from one of the wounds in his arm, which he now keeps wrapped in a bandage.

"I have asked to go to Miami for more treatment, but the government gives me 
nothing," he said.

Pierre's story shocks no one in a country where violence is an almost daily 
occurrence.




During last year's revolt against Aristide, bodies were found dumped on the 
streets around the capital nearly every day. In one rural town, victims of a 
gun battle were left rotting for days on a ragged hillside, their relatives 
afraid to fetch them.

Despite the chaos in his country, Pierre is proud to be a policeman. His pay 
is better than most Haitians earn — the equivalent of about $200 per month — 
but he still struggles to support his wife and three children. Haiti is the 
Western Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Pierre believes he is serving his country, trying to make Haiti a safer, 
better place.

But he has few illusions.

"Most men become policemen so they can make money from corruption," he said. 
"You only get promotions based on who you know, not on how you do your job."

Haiti's police have been criticized by human rights groups for brutality. 
Aristide's supporters say they are unfairly targeted, and many of them have 
been arrested, only to languish for months in jail without trials.

The United Nations has brought about 1,400 foreign police officers to Haiti, 
who are working with the local police on operations and helping to train new 
officers. The U.N.'s goal is to create a professional, corruption-free force 
that will restore order in Haiti.

Pierre hopes the U.N.'s effort will succeed, but he is realistic.

"I've been a policeman for six years," he said. "It is so dangerous that we 
used to wear t-shirts that said, '$1,000 for a coffin.' As a policeman, I 
consider myself to be a person who is already dead."


Mike Williams' e-mail address is mwilliams@coxnews.com