Human Rights Investigation Calls Haiti “More Violent and More Inhuman”

[struggle4progress]

Published on Saturday, January 29, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Report Documents U.S. Role in Chaotic Interim Government
by Fran Quigley

<snip> The investigation team led by Thomas Griffin, a former federal law enforcement officer and now an attorney practicing immigration law in Philadelphia, conducted its interviews and observations in Haiti during November 2004. Their 60-page report, published by the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami School of Law and online at the website for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, www.ijdh.org, includes documentation of masked Haitian National Police routinely committing summary executions of civilians, an outline of U.S. involvement in the current government, and graphic photos of victims of violence.

Griffin says including the stark photographs was an essential part of reporting the investigation’s findings. “Haiti is such a hotly debated political topic that it is important for the report to be as objective as possible,” he said. “The photos are necessary because they can’t be spun one way or another for political purposes. Anyone who sees these pictures will say this should not be happening to human beings anywhere, especially just a few hundred miles from Disney World.”

Among those interviewed for the report were United Nations police, who confessed to investigators their inability to stop the violence in the streets of the poorest neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince, the nation’s capital and largest city. Such poor neighborhoods are the norm in Haiti, where 65% of the population lives on less than $1 per day. One UN commander complained that all he has done in Haiti is “engage in daily guerilla warfare.” <snip>

The investigation also found that the U.S. was closely involved in the effort to remove Aristide, and now is providing key support for the interim government. “Top officials (of the interim government), including the Minister of Justice, worked for U.S. government projects that undermined their predecessors,” the report states. A U.S.-backed embargo from 2000 to 2004 blocked millions of dollars in promised aid from the Inter-American Development Bank to the elected government. The U.S. now provides financial and training support for the interim government, which investigators found to be heavily influenced by Haiti’s merchant elite. <snip>

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0129-28.htm


Miami website for report: http://www.law.miami.edu/news/368.html

[oblivious]

1. I find it so humiliating that Canada was involved in this.

Overthrowing a democratically elected government and putting that brutal army back in force “protecting the rich and attacking the poor”.

What possible reason could Canada have for doing that, except to show that we're still a good little vassal.