From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Haiti: A Human Rights Nightmare
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 5 Sep 1992 00:18:24 GMT

/** reg.carib: 301.0 **/
** Topic: Haiti: A Human Rights Nightmare **
** Written  8:32 am  Sep  4, 1992 by lchr in cdp:reg.carib **
                               PRESS RELEASE

Contact:

William G. O'Neill 212-629-6170 ext. 153

HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYERS FIND THAT HAITI IS LIVING
A HUMAN RIGHTS NIGHTMARE


Human rights violations, including executions, torture and illegal
arrests, are rife in Haiti according to a 62-page report released
today by the New York-based Lawyers Committee for Human Rights.

"Haiti is a human rights nightmare where the most fundamental
freedoms are violated and where the violators enjoy virtual
impunity" said the Lawyers Committee. "Popular expressions of
support for ousted President Aristide are routinely met with
violent reprisals sanctioned by the authorities.  Military
harassment and intimidation of journalists, human rights monitors
and lawyers, students, priests, nuns and grass-roots leaders is
intense."

The Lawyers Committee report is based on a 10-day fact-finding
mission in May 1992 and on reports received from human rights
monitors working clandestinely in Haiti since the violent military
coup in September 1991 which forced President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide into exile.  During its mission to Haiti, the Lawyers
Committee interviewed people recently released from detention who
described how the Haitian army routinely beats prisoners and
solicits bribes to stop the beatings or to release the detainee.
These witnesses provided consistent and compelling first-hand
accounts of beatings, grossly overcrowded prison cells, non-
existent medical attention and inadequate food and water.  Lawyers
Committee representatives also interviewed several journalists who
detailed attacks and threats they endured because of their
reporting on the September military coup.  One journalist told the
Lawyers Committee

       The local army commander called journalists `garbage and
       subversives.'  He ordered his men to beat me.  Soldiers hit
       me at least 250 times on the stomach, back and kidneys.  I
       passed out.  For the next 15 days I couldn't stand up or
       walk.  I had to crawl on my hands and knees around the
       prison cell and I received no medical treatment.

Another former detainee told the Lawyers Committee that an army
officer had beaten him with a baton that was derisively labelled
"democracy."

Lawyers Committee Deputy Director, William G. O'Neill, who
participated in the mission and who has visited Haiti eight times,
observed:

       Haiti now is reminiscent of the Duvalier era.  People are
       terrified.  Many have left their homes and are in hiding.
       On the phone, people are careful to avoid using names or
       identifying themselves.  We had to go through
       intermediaries to meet several people in hiding and who
       feared for their lives if the army ever discovered their
       location.  The few radio stations still on the air were
       obviously exercising a great deal of self-censorship.
       Haiti reeks of fear and intimidation.  Human rights
       violations are daily occurrences and the army knows it can
       act with complete impunity.

The army has even targeted priests and nuns.  One French priest
told the Lawyers Committee that he was arrested simply for holding
a catechism class.  The 15 students in the class were also
arrested.  Seven of them, including a 17-year-old pregnant girl,
were beaten.  Another priest in the city of Les Cayes was beaten
and stripped in public.  Soldiers arrested a nun, threatened her,
and held her in detention for five days all because she had
calendars with President Aristide's picture.  The army has
arrested, detained, tortured and beaten students for attempting to
organize meetings or hold peaceful marches.  The Lawyers Committee
report documents dozens of cases where the "Haitian armed forces
have illegally arrested and detained people solely because of
their affiliation, real or suspected, with pro-Aristide groups."

Freedoms of assembly and association have ceased to exist.  The
army has forbidden meetings in the countryside.  One foreign aid
worker interviewed by the Lawyers Committee was arrested for
holding a staff meeting and said an army officer told her "you
could be having political meetings, I don't know what you are
doing up there."

The Lawyers Committee report makes numerous recommendations to the
Haitian authorities, the United States government and to the
United Nations, including:

~Investigations of human rights violations must be pursued.  Those
found responsible for abuses must be brought to justice.  The
authorities must provide those in the Justice Ministry responsible
for such investigations and prosecutions all necessary assurances
and adopt all necessary measures to fulfill their duties and to
ensure their safety.

~Given the systematic and gross human rights violations documented
in this report, the Bush administration should immediately revoke
the President's May 24, 1992 Executive Order which requires the
U.S. Coast Guard to return all Haitian asylum-seekers picked up on
the high seas without first attempting to determine whether any
person has a plausible claim for political asylum.  This policy is
a blatant violation by the U.S. of binding international law as
well as U.S. domestic law that prohibits the return of refugees to
places of persecution.

~Members of the UN Security Council should discuss and consider
the adoption and implementation of an immediate and universal
embargo on all trade with Haiti
~ including arms and oil ~ that is binding on all UN member
states.  This would send a clear message to the Haitian military
that the United Nations, at the highest level, has taken up the
issue.

*  *  *

Since 1978 the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights has worked to
promote international human rights and refugee law and legal
procedures in the United States and abroad.  Its work is
impartial, holding each government to the standards affirmed in
the International Bill of Human Rights.  The Committee has
investigated and reported on human rights abuses in all regions of
the world.  The Chairman of the Lawyers Committee is Marvin E.
Frankel;  Tom A. Bernstein is its President; Michael H. Posner is
its Executive Director and Martha L. Doggett is Coordinator of the
Americas Program.
** End of text from cdp:reg.carib **
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