Human rights group (BAI) sues mayor in Haiti for terrorizing earthquake victims during unlawful evictions

05/31/2011

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On Wednesday, June 1, 2011, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) will file a complaint with Haiti’s National Prosecutor against Delmas Mayor Wilson Jeudy for his recent spree of illegal evictions in displace­ment camps created after the January 12, 2010 earthquake.  
(Support BAI's work...donate to IJDH.org)
Grassroots human rights organizations and tent camp residents also plan to stage a protest at 10 am at the Ministry of Justice, while the complaint is being filed, to draw attention to their grievances.  The protest will end before the nation’s Parliament.

At least three camps housing approximately 1,000 displaced persons in the Port-au-Prince suburb were destroyed last week by Mayor Jeudy, his armed security personnel and units from the Haitian National Police, as a part of the Mayor’s declared mission to remove camps from public lands. The police came with little to no warning and raided the camps under the pretext of searching for criminals, slashing tents with machetes and assaulting residents trying to protest the raids.

BAI’s complaint on behalf of individual victims of the evictions charges Mayor Jeudy with violations of the rights to life and housing protected by Haiti’s Constitution and crimes against the person and property, articu­lated in the Haitian Penal Code.  “As a public official, Mayor Jeudy is not above the law,” said BAI Managing Attorney Mario Joseph. “Haitian law only permits him to enter private domiciles, regardless of where they are located, with a judicial mandate or a Municipal Decree published in advance, neither of which the Mayor had to justify his acts.”

Last week’s evictions in Delmas are just a snap shot of a larger epidemic of forced evictions that began almost immediately after the earthquake struck 16 months ago.  The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued directives to the Haitian govern ment last fall to impose a moratorium on evictions and protect displaced communities from the violence often associated with forced evictions.  However, due in large part to government inaction, the International Organization on Migration estimated that 166,000 people were still fac ng immi nent threats of eviction as of April.

Mayor Jeudy tried to defend his actions by arguing that the pub lic spaces occupied by tent camps needed to be open to the communities at large.  “Mayor Jeudy is ignoring his duties as a State agent,” said BAI attorney Jeena Shah. “Since Haiti is a party to the American Convention on Human Rights and a host of other human rights treaties, Mayor Jeudy has a duty to not only protect displaced persons from forced evictions, but also facilitate their reset tlement into decent housing.”

While the Mayor believes that many of the camps’ residents have housing but were staying in camps to access free services, the appalling conditions of displacement camps make apparent the fact that if the earth quake victims had some where else to go, they would have left long ago.

Press Release: Human rights group sues mayor in Haiti for terrorizing earthquake victims during unlawful evictions (BAI), Contact Mario Joseph or Jeena Shah, For Immediate Release, May 31, 2011
Mario Joseph, Av., Managing Attorney, Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, mario@ijdh.org, +509‑3701-9879/ +509‑3554-4284  (in Port-au-Prince) (French)
Jeena Shah, Esq., Legal Fellow, Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, jeena@ijdh.org, +509‑3610-2781 (in Port-au-Prince) (English)

Founded in 1995, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) is the only public interest law firm in Haiti. With the support of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, the BAI uses litigation, advocacy, doc­umentation and grassroots empowerment to advance the rule of law and challenge the unjust struc­tures that violate the human rights of Haiti’s poor major ity. Visit haitijustice.org. Follow @IJDH
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The Ad that's Too Hot for Times Square! Stand up for Haitians, New York!

05/31/2011

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CBS has pulled an ad about the dangers of deporting Haitians off of its jumbotron in Times Square. 
The video is a PSA from the Center for Constitutional Rights which warns that Haitians 
who are being deported are at risk of contracting Cholera–one deportee even died 
in custody shortly after returning to Haiti. The New York Daily News has the scoop.
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Watching government officers trained by a US security firm destroy Haitian earthquake refugee tent camps.

05/31/2011

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"Da Mayor of Delmas in Action"
 "Residents watched in horror as men in shirts reading 
“The Mayor of Delmas in Action” were clearing away 
the little that remained of their lives."

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Security forces who are tearing down makeshift tent camps inhabited by Haitians 
displaced in last year’s earthquake were trained by Risks Incorporated, a US private 
security firm involved in torture trainings in Mexico, a Narco News investigation has found....
Risks Incorporated’s Andrew Wilson, who also goes by the names “Orlando” and “Jerry,” 
confirmed in a telephone interview that he trained them in “use of force.” In 2008, Narco 
News revealed that Wilson trained Mexican police in torture techniques in videos leaked 
to the Mexican press.Videos posted in March 2009 on Risks Inc.’s YouTube page show
 a man training several dozen Haitian men in the then-partially-constructed city hall of 
Delmas Mayor Wilson Jeudy. 
Torture Firm 'Risks Incorporated' Tied to Destructive Evictions in Haiti 
by Ansel Herz for NarcoNews.com, May 29, 2011
"On a small side street away from the public eye, a woman stands amidst debris.  “Leve, leve!” she screams, reenacting for me how the police woke her in the morning, yelling at her to get out before they cut down her tent.  Next to her, a panicked man is twirling in circles, collecting what is left of broken tiles lining a dirt floor.  They both lost their homes in the earthquake and have been living in neighboring tents with their families since January 2010. Wednesday morning, the police showed up unannounced and violently destroyed their shelters, leaving them homeless again.
Watching Government Officers Destroy Tent Camps, a blog entry by Beatrice, beahaiti.wordpress.com, May 30, 2011

"The evictions carried out this week constitute a blatant and 
unjustifiable violation of Haitian and international law..." 


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Haitian Mayors Office Vows to Destroy All Refugee Camps, Launches Violent Campaign

05/30/2011

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May 2011 eviction campaign 
by the mayor of Delmas, Wilson Jeudi.

On May 23 and 25, police in the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince destroyed camps which sheltered people who were otherwise homeless since the earthquake. Police and other municipal workers beat and arrested residents, and physically threatened the lives of a human rights lawyer and an advocate who had come to investigate. The mayor of Delmas announced that this is part of a new campaign to evict internally displaced persons [IDPs] from public spaces.

Those whose lodging was destroyed were amongst the million-plus people who have lived for 16 months under tents, lean-to’s of shredded tarps, or whatever repurposed materials they could scrounge, from blankets to tin. Neither the Haitian government nor the international community has offered any large-scale resettlement options.

Camps Destroyed

On the morning of May 23, two truckloads of police from Delmas, a self-governed district within the metropolitan capital, plus other armed men wearing T-shirts reading “the Delmas mayor’s office in action,” arrived at three camps rimming the intersection of Delmas Road and Airport Road. The security forces and two bulldozers smashed the tents and all the the belongings of an estimated 100 to 200 families, leaving heaps of detritus. Trucks from the mayor’s office hauled away the remains of the survivors’ only possessions.

During the offensive, the Delmas employees arrested three camp residents and beat three community activists who tried to protect the tents, according to eyewitnesses.

On May 25, police turned out at two other IDP camps on Delmas routes 3 and 5 and destroyed tents and belongings there.

Immediately after the destruction, Patrice Florvilus, an attorney with the non-profit group Defenders of the Oppressed, and Reyneld Sanon, an organizer with the right-to-housing coalition Force for Reflection and Action on Housing [FRAKKA] and with the U.S.-based economic justice group Other Worlds, held a press conference on the scene. Delmas police and workers from the district’s garbage collection office came at the two men with shovels, machetes, and knives. Camp residents formed a security cordon and successfully protected Florvilus and Sanon.
Mayoral Offensive to “Clean” Public Spaces

In an interview with the newspaper Le Nouvelliste after the May 23 operation, Mayor Wilson Jeudi of Delmas said, “This is a public place… It can’t remain privatized by a group of people.” In the context of a hyper-concentrated city, much of it still uninhabitable due to rubble from the earthquake, with desperate survivors lodging themselves in virtually any open space, Jeudi offered a new definition of “privatize.” He went on to announce that all public spaces are going to be emptied of residents, leaving them “clean.” ......(click on "read more" for the rest of the story)

Haitian Mayor's Office Vows to Destroy All Refugee Camps, Launches Violent Campaign by Beverly Bell, truthout.org, May 28, 2011

Two general background reports
re: camp evictions.

March 2011 Democracy Now report
January 2011 Al Jazeera report
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Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Calls on Haiti to Prosecute Crimes Committed Under Duvalier

05/25/2011

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For Immediate Release
MAY 24, 2011
The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights grants the request of the Collective Against Impunity and calls on Haiti to investigate and prosecute crimes committed under the government of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier

On May 17, 2011, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued a formal statement follow ing its public hearing on March 28 concerning impunity for human rights violations during the Duvalier dictatorship. The Commission ‘s statement supports the position of the Collective Against Impunity, a coalition of individual plaintiffs and human rights groups —including: The Ecumenical Center for Human Rights; Kay Fanm (The House of Women); Mouvement des femmes haïtiennes pour l’éducation et le développement (MOUFHED) and Réseau national de défense des droits humains (RNDDH) — which
requested the hearing and which filed complaints against former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier. The Haitian government, which was represented at the hearings by its Ministryof Justice, expressed its will to prosecute the crimes in question and sought the technical assistance of the Inter-American Commission.

The Inter-American Commission is, along with the Inter American Court of Human Rights, one of two bodies in the inter-American system whose purpose is to promote and protect human rights. Created in 1959, it monitors state compliance with the American Conventionon Human Rights, known as the “Pact of San José, Costa Rica,” which Haiti ratified on September 14, 1977.

In its Statement, the Inter-American Commission said thatHaiti has a duty to investigate the crimes committed under the government of “President for Life” Jean-Claude Duvalier
from 1971 to 1986. It stressed that Haiti has “an international obligation to investigate and, where necessary, punish those responsible for the gross human rights violations committed
during the regime of Jean-Claude Duvalier.”

Some analysts have contended that the statute of limitations under Haitian law bars the prosecution of Duvalier’s alleged crimes. The Inter-American Commission cited, however, the consistent rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights finding that “[a]ll amnesty provisions [and] provisions on prescription … are inadmissible [when they] preventthe investi gation and punish ment of those responsible for serious human rights violations such as torture, extra judicial, summary or arbitrary execution and forced disappearance.“
The Inter-American Court’s interpretations of the American Convention are binding on Haiti.


The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights Grants the Request of the Collective Against Impunity and calls on Haiti to Prosecute Crimes Committed Under the Duvalier Dictatorship by ijdh.org, May 24, 2011
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Lawyers Denounce Shortcomings in Conduct of Duvalier Prosecution

05/21/2011

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.
"Perseverance, courage and audacity 
...have allowed [people] to overcome barriers to justice. 
We must arm our selves with these attributes so that we 
may finish the crusade against impunity in the Americas and 
bring this last dictator to justice."
The Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) and the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) con­tinue to express their outrage at the cavalier manner in which the prosecution of former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier is being conducted, and their concern over the investigating judge’s apparent lack of interest to pur­sue this case in accordance with the law. 

This prosecution presents a historic opportunity to end the impunity that has torn the social fabric of Haiti for many decades and has prevented the establishment of a democr tic constitutional state. 
The day after charges were filed against the former dictator, the judge charged with investigating the case paid a courtesy visit to Mr. Duvalier in the hotel where he was staying, in violation of Article 49 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.  The judge also failed to follow proper procedure when he issued a preliminary indict­ment against the defendant without first having questioned him, constituting a violation of Haitian law. The judge’s blatant disregard of the Code of Criminal Procedure, despite his knowledge of the law, demonstrates an apparent bias in favor of the accused and serves as a slap in the face of the victims who have come forth to seek justice through the law. 
Moreover, by issuing a preliminary indictment fraught with these procedural errors, the judge is effectively giving the defense the ability to overturn the indictment on appeal based on technicalities.  This seriously calls into question the judge’s commitment to see justice served in this case. We demand that the judge immediately recuse him self from the case to prevent the entire process from being irreparably tainted.

The integrity of the process has been fur ther undermined by Jean-Claude Duvalier’s failure to appear in court.  Each time he is called in for questioning, Mr. Duvalier falls ill and visits the hospital. Despite the suspi­cious timing of Mr. Duvalier’s hospital visits, the judge does not call him back to court once he is released from the hospital. 
Meanwhile, Mr. Duvalier routinely defies an order placing him under house arrest and travels the country as if he were a candidate in an electoral campaign, adding insult to injury to the countless victims who suffered human rights abuses under his regime.  Mr. Duvalier’s free movement around the country suggests that the Haitian justice system is not yet willing to break with Haïti’s history of impunity.

The BAI and IJDH ask all to mobilize and to remain vigilant until justice is served and impunity is ended.  This will be achieved when Duvalier is properly tried and convicted. Therefore, we call on victims of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s brutal regime to continue to come forward and file complaints against him and all com plainants to imme di ately seek the removal of the judge from this case. The BAI and IJDH ask the victims and supporters of the rule of law to multiply their efforts to stand up against impunity in Haiti.  
We remind every one that justice for crimes committed by dictators and their agents will require persistent efforts. In Latin America, dictators’ crimes have commonly been justified by the adoption of emergency laws by their governments. But the perseverance, courage and audacity of the people of those countries have allowed them to over come barriers to justice. We must arm our selves with these attributes so that we may finish the crusade against impunity in the Americas and bring this last dictator to justice.
Lawyers Denounce Shortcomings in Conduct of Duvalier Prosecution, press release by BAI and IJDH.org, May 10, 2011
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Just When you Think it Can't Get Any Worse- Constitutional Amendment Re-Establishes Haitian Army

05/21/2011

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According to Haiti LIBRE, the parliamentarians have repealed an article of the declaration of amendment concerning the army. This amendment confirms the retention in the Constitution of the Armed Forces of Haiti (FAd'H) dissolved in 1995 after the return of the exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Consitutional Amendment Establishes Army and New Measures for the Executive by Samuel Maxime, May 11, 2011
"...Since Haiti already has a police force to maintain public order and the country is not expected to go to war, Martelly can have only one aim for reintroducing armed forces: to reclaim the tool that past presidents have used to shore up their power by means of violent repression of dissent and competition.Forces are already readying for violence, which will likely be exerted both through the army and through gangs. Journalist Isabeau Doucet filed this eyewitness report last month: “For over a year, on a hillside south of Port-au-Prince, around 100 former soldiers and young recruits train three times a week. They claim to have a network of camps all over the country where Haitian men meet and exercise, learn military protocol and martial arts and receive basic training... The black-and-red flag of Jean-Claude Duvalier’s party hangs in their tarpaulin dressing room… Somebody is paying for this, even though they claim that it’s all-volunteer, and the current government is turning a blind eye, if not giving tacit support.”

Just how the forces of violence may ally with various backers - some combination of Martelly and those surrounding the returned former dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier - is one question. Another is how much they may tyrannize a citizens’ movement which is demanding solutions to widespread homelessness, unemployment, and extreme poverty. Two U.S.-based groups supporting community organizing in Haiti are already preparing emergency responses in case significant political violence should erupt.

Beyond Martelly’s plans for an army, his past associations raise concerns about what policies he may bring to office. Martelly was public in his support for the death squad-friendly regimes that reigned after coups d’état against Aristide (1991 and 2004). More recently, Martelly has made such public statements as "I would kill Aristide to stick a dick up his ass...."
Just When You Think It Can't Get Any Worse by Beverly Bell, ipsnews.net, May 5, 2011

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Foundation of the problem with the "build back better" plan in Haiti

05/20/2011

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.
 Jobs are outsourced to foreign workers despite unemployment rates of 85%




$98.40 of every $100 awarded in reconstruction contracts by the US government is recycled back to the US 
"...The Haitian people were given very little say in terms of the election itself. The international community pressured the Preval government to drop specific candidates from the race, in favour of positioning Mirlande Manigat and Michel Martelly in line for the runoff. This disjuncture between the Haitian people and the State is not new — few governments in Haitian history have obtained their position without the acquiescence of the US government. Such approval has always come with the requirement that Haiti’s government adopt specific policies in keeping with prevailing global economic orthodoxy. As a result, control over the State has generally remained strictly within the hands of the US (and the domestic elite) at the expense of the poor majority.

The neoliberal State building framework represents the contemporary manifestation of the historic inequalities of power between different States. First introduced to Haiti in the 1970s, it is based on the assertion that free-market reforms (a deceptive term given the need for heavy government interference to enforce such destabilising policy) and structural adjustment will generate economic growth, the benefits of which will eventually ‘trickle down’ to those below.

However, the majority of Haitians have experienced structural adjustment as spiralling social inequality and the further impoverishment. According primacy to the ‘free-market’ allows human life to be subjugated to the vagaries of the market and international capital. Statistics from a 2009 International Monetary Fund Report show that 76% of Haitians live on less than $2 a day- an increase from previous years. The drastic reduction of trade tariffs on rice during Clinton’s government left farmers unable to compete with heavily subsidised US products and set the country on a path towards import (and aid) dependence. This precipitated high rural-urban migration to seek work in export processing zones. Prior to the January 2010 earthquake unemployment stood at around 70% while wages fell in real terms below 20% of 1981 levels, while prices of basic commodities rose, culminating in riots in 2008. At the State level neoliberalism has continued to reproduce asymmetries in economic power between Haiti and the dominant States.
Haiti: The Structural Difficulties of "Building Back Better" by Kirsty M. Bisset, dissidentvoice.org, May 16, 2011

Despite the human cost of neoliberalism, and the very specific conception of ‘progress’ it is based upon, it remains hegemonic and continues to be promoted by the international community in the post-earthquake period.
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Anti-rape legal campaign moblizes for change in Haiti

05/20/2011

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Images of Port-au-Prince, Haiti under massive death, destruction and rubble are starting to fade from the media, but conditions of squalor and psychological aftershocks remain as Haiti deals with a persistent crisis – an ongoing sexual violence directed against innocent women and girls.
Providing a pro-bono global network of 160 corporate counsels and law firms, individual attorneys and legal teams are now making themselves available to assist women in diverse global regions who have little to no access to any legal assistance. The TrustLaw Connect initiative, sponsored by the Thomson Reuters Foundation, is assisting to bring expert information together on current conditions covering sexual violence and violence against women in Haiti. Initiatives like the recent forum in Port-au-Prince are helping to compare law legislation in South Africa, Brazil, France, Sweden, Canada and the United States, along with a review of Haiti’s current laws.

Bringing together attorneys, Members of the Haitian Parliament, medical doctors, health-workers, police officers and women’s organizations, the forum on sexual violence against women discussed many critical needs and critical solutions.

In spite of many uphill climbs and obstacles, local community based solutions to address the violence are beginning now to take-root  in Port-au-Prince. MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization working in partnership with advocacy organizations worldwide, is now partnering closely with KOFAVIV, among other community-based advocates and organizations working inside Haiti, to meet the ‘immediate needs’ for women and girls suffering from rape violence.

In addition to helping women seek legal  justice and greater safety, MADRE is also working with KOFAVIV to help distribute pots and pans for cooking, along with clean water, soap and sanitary napkins inside the camps.

“The camps are dangerous places for women and girls: they are terribly overcrowded, without safe housing, lighting or police,” says Lisa Davis, professor of law at the International Human Rights Center CUNY Law School (U.S.) and Human Rights Advocacy Director for MADRE. “Worse, the social networks that normally provide protection have been destroyed. Women are raped in their tents, on the way to the bathroom and even in the bathroom because there’s no way to lock a door,“ continued Davis.

KOFAVIV has also organized training for women to help them learn some techniques to protect them from the attackers. Handing out cellphones, whistles and flashlights they hope to empower women to respond quickly and pro-actively to crimes.“The overwhelming majority of rapes in Haiti post-earthquake have gone unpunished and the Haitian government and international community have not effectively deployed their resources to provide adequate protection,” outlines a legal petition letter signed by ten advocacy organizations now working on the ground in Haiti, including MADRE, KOFAVIV, Center for Constitutional Rights, Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti and CUNY Law School, among others.

The letter, as a formal petition, was presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) in Washington D.C. on March 25, 2011 and is also scheduled to be delivered to the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) for the Universal Periodic Review session at the 12th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, October 3-14, 2011.
Anti-rape legal experts mobilize for Change in Haiti by Lys Anzia, Women News Network, Friday, May 20, 2011
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Martelly: Haiti's Second Great Disaster (Greg Grandin for Al Jazeera)

05/04/2011

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Picture


"No sooner had Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly been confirmed the winner in Haiti's deeply flawed presidential election than he jumped on a plane and headed to Washington, where he met with his country's real power brokers: officials from the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the US Chamber of Commerce and the State Department. 

There, he committed his desperately poor country - where some 700,000 people are still homeless as a result of last year's earthquake - to fiscal discipline, promising to "give new life to the business sector". In exchange, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave him a strong endorsement. "We are behind him; we have a great deal of enthusiasm," she said. "The people of Haiti may have a long road ahead of them, but as they walk it, the United States will be with you all the way," she added.

Martelly, a well-known kompa singer, is an unusual choice to lead Haiti. With no political experience, he represents a clear break with the country's other democratically elected presidents since the island nation ousted the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and ushered in an unprecedented era of democracy.   

The US press billed his victory as "overwhelming". But with Haiti's most popular political party, Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Fanmi Lavalas, banned from participating in the election, a vast majority of Haitians didn't vote. Martelly took the presidency with just 16.7 per cent of the electorate. 

Compare this dismal turnout with the election of Haiti's last two presidents. Aristide, a popular liberation theologian priest, won the presidency twice in landslides where a majority of the electorate voted, first in 1990 and again in 2000. Aristide's first prime minister, Rene Preval likewise was elected twice by large margins with high turnouts, in 1995 and 2006. In this election, Martelly got two-thirds of the vote - but three-quarters of registered voters didn't turn up. 

It bodes ominously for Haiti, but Martelly may have more in common with Gerard Latortue, the head of state imposed on Haiti following the 2004 US-backed coup d'etat against Aristide. A South Florida talk-show host, Latortue, like Martelly, had no background in politics. But, like Martelly, he did have friends in Washington.  During Latortue's brief stint in office, 2004 - 2006, Haiti experienced some 4,000 political murders, according to The Lancet - while hundreds of Fanmi Lavalas members, Aristide supporters, and social movement leaders were locked up - usually on bogus charges. Latortue's friends in Washington looked the other way.

Martelly's Washington friends include Damian Merlo, his presidential campaign manager. Merlo's CV should alarm anyone concerned with democracy in Haiti. Merlo has worked for Otto Reich, the Iran-Contra veteran and supporter of coups in Honduras and Venezuela. Merlo has also worked with the International Republican Institute, which - under the banner of "democracy promotion" - funds "civil society" organisations to destabilise governments it deems to be a problem. 

During his stint at IRI, Merlo took steps to weaken Brazil's governing Workers' Party. Prior to taking on Sweet Micky's campaign, Merlo beefed up his experience with John McCain's failed 2008 presidential bid. McCain, interestingly, chairs IRI's board, and brought Reich on as a foreign policy adviser during the 2008 campaign.

Many Haiti observers may be familiar with the IRI for the key role it played in overthrowing Aristide's government during his second term. IRI trained and funded various anti-Aristide groups, promoted anti-Aristide propaganda, and, as described in a New York Times feature article in 2006, even worked to undermine political solutions being negotiated with Aristide by the US embassy and the Organisation of American States. Two years earlier, the IRI was also deeply involved in the failed coup against Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Support and campaign
While in Washington, Martelly promised his supporters that he would promote transparency when it came to foreign aid. That openness, however, apparently doesn't apply to his campaign donations, raising the possibility that he is funded by the same groups which drove Aristide from power in 2004. Martelly admits that he received financial support from foreign sources but, in response to questioning by the Miami Herald, he refused to identify them other than saying they are "people who believe in us". When pressed, he deflected, telling the interviewer, "you talk to them"...."

Martelly: Haiti's Second Great Disaster by Greg Grandin, english.aljazeera.net, May 4, 2011

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