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Horror
Haiti
by Bill
West
FrontPageMagazine.com
| March 11, 2004
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=12546
Less than two months ago the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) arrested and deported Jean-Claude Duperval, a former Haitian army
general and a US Court-designated human rights persecutor, who was wanted
for mass murder in Haiti. These alleged acts stemmed from the tyranny
imposed on the Haitian populace by the military regime that ousted democratically
elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Duperval was the last of the
infamous “Haitian Three” human rights violators, all former
Haitian military officers, wanted for their involvement in committing
atrocities in Haiti while in power. The other two, former Colonel Carl
Dorelien and former Lt. Colonel Herbert Valmond, had been previously
arrested and deported by the INS in Miami and, like Duperval, were being
held in the Haitian National Prison awaiting further judicial proceedings
in that country. That is, until now.
Recent events in Haiti make it unclear what the future holds for the
“Haitian Three” and at least a dozen lower level Haitian
persecutors who were arrested and deported from the US over the past
three years. The arrests, which occurred in South Florida under what
had been the INS’ Miami District's aggressive and successful human
rights persecutor apprehension program, were the precursor to the ICE’s
national level Operation No Safe Haven. The so-called rebels who have
allegedly liberated Haiti from Aristide are mainly former Haitian army
members and operatives of what had been the Front for Advancement and
Progress in Haiti (FRAPH), a “paramilitary” organization
aligned with corrupt military officials whose primary mission was to
kidnap, torture and murder political opponents. These are now the “liberators”
of a country where even the elected president, Aristide, by almost everyone's
account, was at best completely incapable of effectively governing anywhere
outside the boundaries of his own presidential palace, and at worst
not much better than the dictators he replaced.
From any perspective--political, economic, or social--Haiti is in terrible
shape. It is a country incapable of supporting itself agriculturally,
or otherwise economically, and it is strategically situated in a high-density
drug trafficking corridor. It doesn’t take much to understand
why corruption among Haitian government officials has been rampant at
every level for a very long time. It is also clear why Haiti has been
a magnet for every variation of smuggler, pirate, and thug who happens
to ply the Caribbean. All of this adds up to a long-term human rights
disaster for the Haitian people. Abject poverty, corrupt government
(even when it’s democratically elected), the barest minimum of
law enforcement and judicial authority, a steady flow of external dirty
money and arms, and a virtually unchecked and often officially sanctioned
“rule of the street gang,” has given the Western hemisphere
what it now has--a nation is name only, with seven million people, most
of whom are uneducated, hungry, in constant danger and fear, and who
are always at risk of being the victims of the next group of tyrants
and their henchmen.
The leaders of the so-called rebels who, for the moment, tenuously hold
whatever reign of power exists in Haiti are former colleagues of the
notorious “Haitian Three.”
Reports from the Haitian capital the day after Aristide fled indicated
prison guards exchanged their uniforms for civilian clothes and allowed
the inmates to flee. It’s unknown at this point if any or all
of the “Three” may have been among those fleeing inmates.
Given the fast changing situation on the ground in Haiti, yesterday’s
war criminal could be tomorrow’s prime minister. Hopefully, the
developing international security forces will not allow that to happen;
but it is not entirely clear yet who will really be in charge. In the
event Duperval, Dorelien, or Valmond were to be free and become aligned
with an evolving transitional government, either overtly or behind the
scenes, that could spell disaster for anyone in country who had in any
way had crossed them. Even with that Troika of Terror free, but on the
lam hiding from international peacekeepers, they would have powerful
allies among the well-armed and well-placed thugs within Haitian society
and they could wreak no small amount of havoc, if they so chose. An
important question to be quickly answered is, “Where are the ‘Three’?”
Haiti had only a couple of years of anything resembling hope. It was
immediately after Aristide’s return to power in 1994 by the efforts
of the US military intervention and the influx of large-scale international
aide. Ironically, the one shining example of Haitian judicial process
was the trial of the Raboteau massacre defendants, which included Duperval,
Dorelien, and Valmond, who were convicted in absentia (because they
were illegally in the US, facing deportation) but guaranteed new trials
if they returned to Haiti. The trial, covered by the international media
and scrupulously monitored by international legal observers, was hailed
as eminently fair and a tribute to due process and a milestone for the
Haitian judicial system. For a time, the Haitian National Police, under
the tutelage of US police advisers, was in the process of becoming something
that passed for a police force instead of a force of armed thugs.
For political reasons, the US pulled out of Haiti within a few short
years of the 1994 intervention. Without the American military, police
and judicial advisers, the institutional degeneration of the police
and criminal justice system quickly set in and the corruption spread
even more quickly. Somewhat amazingly, relative to the human rights
persecutor suspects, the US was able to continue the deportation process
to Haiti almost to the end of the Aristide regime, as evidenced by the
Duperval removal.
However, in the current chaos that now exists in Haiti, three issues
relative to human rights violators should be considered by the United
States and international forces about to embark on yet another stabilization
and nation building mission in that beleaguered country. 1) Account
for the likes of Duperval, Dorelien and Valmond and the several lower
level military and paramilitary operatives who had been deported from
the US as persecutors and detained by Haitian authorities. 2) Recognize
the “rebellion” and the ensuing period of occupation itself
will likely result in Haitians committing atrocities against other Haitians
and establish investigative mechanisms to deal with such matters once
reasonable security and stability are reached. 3) Incorporate, to the
extent possible, the ability to investigate and prosecute human rights
violations within the framework of whatever new government is established
in Haiti. These atrocities are a dark but integral part of Haiti’s
modern history. If Haitians are to have any hope of emerging from the
evil and despair that has engulfed their nation for so long, confronting
their own terror monsters with genuine and lasting justice must be done.
Hopefully, the United States and the international community will help
that pitiful land do just that.
Bill West retired as the Chief of the National
Security Section for the INS in Miami, Florida and is now a consultant
for the Investigative Project, a Washington DC-based counterterrorism
research institute.
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