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26602: Haiti Progres: (news) This Week In Haiti 23:36 11/16/2005 (fwd)
From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>
"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at editor@haitiprogres.com.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.
HAITI PROGRES
"Le journal qui offre une alternative"
* THIS WEEK IN HAITI *
November 16 - 22, 2005
Vol. 23, No. 36
ANOTHER UN ASSAULT ON CITÉ SOLEIL
On Nov. 8, UN occupation troops undertook a military operation in the
Port-au-Prince slum of Cité Soleil, killing two people and wounding 15
others, according to a Haitian human rights source. Beginning at
midnight, the operation lasted all day and culminated in the arrest of 3
people at around 9 p.m..
Tanks were positioned throughout the shanty town, and shrapnel from the
shells they fired was what accounted for many of the wounded, who went
to St. Catherine's hospital.
The operation was similar to another large-scale UN operation on Jul. 6,
2005, in which at least 60 people were killed.
Since the Feb. 29, 2004 coup against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
UN occupation forces and the Haitian police (which since June are
formally under UN supervision) have carried out many operations that
have resulted in the death of dozens of innocent Haitian civilians.
In October, the International Tribunal on Haiti sent a Commission of
Inquiry to Haiti to collect testimony and evidence about possible crimes
against humanity committed by de facto and occupation authorities. The
Commission will present its findings at the second session of the
International Tribunal on Haiti in Boston on Nov. 19 (see accompanying
article).
WITH HAITI'S HUMAN RIGHTS "CATASTROPHIC":
INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL CONVENES SECOND SESSION IN BOSTON
The second session of the International Tribunal on Haiti will be held
on November 19, 2005 from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Suffolk University Law
School in Boston. This session of the Tribunal is being organized by a
coalition of Haiti solidarity groups, supported by the Latin America
Solidarity Coalition, the New England Human Rights Organization for
Haiti, the Boston International Action Center, and the A.N.S.W.E.R.
Coalition. It is being sponsored by Suffolk University Law School and
the Suffolk Law School Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild.
At the Tribunal's opening session in September, prosecutors presented a
detailed background of the February 29, 2004 coup against exiled
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and preliminary indictments. The
actions of the U.S. and Canadian governments to destabilize the Aristide
government prior to February 29, 2004 were examined. Witnesses provided
eye-witness testimony about the on-going massacres of innocent civilians
in Haiti being carried out by masked policemen with the acquiescence,
and increasingly participation, of the troops of the U.N. Mission to
Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH).
A blue-ribbon Commission of Inquiry was announced at the Tribunal's
opening session, held in Washington, DC on September 23, 2005 at the
George Washington University Elliott School of International Affairs.
Led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the Commission
traveled to Haiti in October and gathered evidence of and testimony
about new massacres and other crimes against humanity which have been
committed in Haiti since February 29, 2004 (see HaVti ProgrPs, Vol. 23,
No. 31, 10/12/2005). The Commission met primarily with eye-witnesses and
the relatives of victims of massacres in Haiti. Hours of testimony and
evidence were videotaped, photographed and recorded, much of which will
be presented at the second session of the Tribunal.
The Tribunal will forward evidence supporting the convictions for those
found guilty of ordering, executing or tolerating massacres and crimes
against humanity to the new International Criminal Court in The Hague.
The Tribunal's presiding judges are former Haitian ambassador-at-large
Ben Dupuy, Chicago alderman and attorney Lionel Jean-Baptiste, and Miami
activist and radio journalist Lucie Tondreau. A fifteen-member jury will
decide on the cases presented to it by the examining magistrate, Michael
Avery, Suffolk University law professor and president of the National
Lawyers Guild. Desiree Welborn Wayne, an experienced criminal prosecutor
and former law instructor from Colorado, is expected to unseal new
indictments on the basis of the Commission of Inquiry's findings. The
Tribunal indicted 19 former and current commanders of U.S., Canadian,
French and UN forces, UN officials, Haitian police officials and former
"rebel" leaders, who took up arms against Haiti's Constitutional
government from 2001-2004.
In addition to Ramsey Clark, other members of the Commission of Inquiry
who will testify in Boston include Captain Lawrence Rockwood, a former
counter-intelligence officer in the U.S. Army who was court-martialed in
1995 after acting without orders to save the lives of prisoners in Haiti
's National Penitentiary on Sep. 30, 1994 (see HaVti ProgrPs, Vol. 12,
No. 49, 3/1/2005); Tom Griffin, an immigration lawyer in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania and author of a widely acclaimed January 2005 human rights
report issued by the University of Miami Law School; Dave Welsh, a
delegate of the San Francisco Labor Council and organizer of a U.S.
labor human rights delegation to Haiti in June and July 2005; and John
Parker, west coast coordinator of the International Action Center (IAC).
The Commission members will present some of the testimony they collected
from eye-witnesses, victims, and the relatives of victims of massacres
in Cité Soleil, Belair, Nazon, Solino, Carrefour, Canapé Vert, Pernal,
and BelladPre.
Three days after the Commission of Inquiry held an Oct. 11 press
conference outlining some of its finding, Thierry Fagart, the UN's human
rights officer in Haiti, also held a press conference where he called
the state of human rights in Haiti "catastrophic." But he put the full
blame for the problem on the Haitian National Police (PNH).
On Nov. 2, the Tribunal's chief prosecutor sent a letter to UN
Secretary-General Kofi Anan as well as the UN High Commissioner for
Human Rights in Geneva, Louise Arbour. "In Haiti, the Commission did
receive cooperation from Mario Andrésol, [police chief] of the PNH,"
Wayne wrote. "Unfortunately, MINUSTAH and UN CIVPOL officials were not
as cooperative."
Wayne concluded: "Because the Commission is convinced that you believe
in the principle that no one should escape accountability for acts of
terror, we urge you to encourage MINUSTAH officials to fully cooperate
with the on-going investigation of the Commission of Inquiry and to
assist the Commission in its search for the truth."
All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.
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