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6-14-06, 8:52 am
Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Feb. 29, 2004, the Royal Canadian Mounted
Police have been training and supervising police in Haiti who are
killing residents in poor neighbourhoods.
Two different RCMP
officers have been in charge of the United Nations Police Mission
(UNPOL): David Beer, who came to Haiti directly from Iraq in May
2004, where he was teaching counter-insurgency tactics, and Graham
Muir, who replaced Beer in mid-2005.
Today, Muir commands a
1,600-strong UNPOL contingent that includes 100 RCMP and Quebec
Provincial Police officers, under the mandate of the Brazilian
led-UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which is
responsible for training and overseeing the Haitian National Police
(HNP). As UNPOL Commissioner, Muir takes part in all high-level
planning and strategy meetings, be they military or policing.
Canada is also involved in other ways with the HNP. The
Canadian International Development Agency hired retired Montreal
Police Chief Claude Rochon to work closely with the HNP high command
to create a new "strategic framework" for policing in
Haiti.
According to a University of Miami Law
school report, Haiti: Human rights Investigation, released in 2005,
the HNP has degenerated into a murderous force under the RCMP-led
UNPOL. Arbitrary arrests and extra-judicial murder of suspects and
witnesses are routine Haitian police practices, states the report's
author, human rights attorney Thomas Griffin.
Griffin and
other University of Miami Law school investigators spoke with HNP
officers who agreed to be interviewed only on conditions of
anonymity because they feared reprisals from fellow police. These
unidentified officers were frustrated and angry because since the
overthrow of Aristide, honest, well trained officers are passed over
for promotion. Only former soldiers without police training have
been promoted to high command positions. In turn, these officers
only promote other former soldiers.
Now, former soldiers
occupy most municipal police chief positions, reports Griffin.
Officers expressed frustration working with ex-soldiers because of
their lack of police knowledge and skills. The Haitian police
officers also complained that their commanders are often corrupt.
Aristide's government disbanded the Haitian military in 1995
because of its brutal history of killing, torture, extortion and
coups. Many of Haiti's military officers graduated from the
Georgia-based School of the Americas (renamed in 2001 as the Western
Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US
military trained many of Latin America's most notorious human rights
abusers.
During HNP operations in poor neighbourhoods,
unidentified officers told investigators, their superiors order the
killing of suspects as well as witnesses. Former Police Chief Leon
Charles ordered officers to suppress opposition demonstrations,
states Griffin.
"One officer stated that many good officers
(defined by the officers interviewed as those who refuse bribes, are
well trained, love their work and country, and refuse orders to
commit summary executions) would like to speak out but cannot out of
fear for their jobs and their lives," writes Griffin.
Reports from the International Catholic Institute (ICI) and
Amnesty International support the Miami Law school's report.
According to the ICI, "many of the 5,000 strong [HNP] force have
links to the previous military or have been involved in drug
rackets, kidnappings, extra-judicial killings or other illegal
activities." An Amnesty press release says "there are serious
problems with the ... functioning of the police," and accuses HNP
officers not only of summary executions, but also illegal and
arbitrary arrests, torture and rape.
Even MINUSTAH head Juan
Gabriel Valdes stated at a UN Security Council Meeting in March that
newly elected President Rene Preval will not be able to make any
changes in Haiti until, among other things, the HNP is reformed. He
said many police officers have committed grave human rights
violations.
However, critics charge that MINUSTAH, whose
military forces accompany the HNP during raids into poor
neighbourhoods, shares responsibility for the HNP's abuses. Doctors
Without Borders, the Haiti Information Project News Agency, and
numerous independent journalists have also reported that independent
MINUSTAH operations in poor neighbourhoods have resulted in dozens
of civilian deaths.
Last November 15, human rights groups in
Washington, DC, filed two petitions with the Organization of
American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking
legal redress from the US and Brazilian governments for human rights
violations. While the HNP is responsible for killing thousands of
innocent civilians, argue the groups, they would not have been able
to undertake these killings without arms supplied by the US and the
assistance of Brazilian led-MINUSTAH.
UNPOL head Muir stated
in an interview on September 27, 2005 that "rogue elements within
the HNP" are responsible for murder and other human rights
violations. He said that UNPOL is trying to weed out these "rogue
elements."
Brian Concannon Jr. of the Oregon-based Institute
for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said that Muir is only partially
right, and contends that MINUSTAH and the RCMP-led UNPOL share
responsibility for the murderous direction that the HNP has taken.
"Some of the killings are done by rogue elements of the
Haitian police," stated Concannon. "But many of these rogue elements
were intentionally integrated into the force, without public
objection from MINUSTAH or UNPOL. Starting in 2004, General Herard
Abraham (former minister of the interior and retired head of the
Haitian armed forces) started integrating former soldiers into the
force, bypassing the regulations for police recruitment and
promotion. These new officers were not loyal to the police hierarchy
and system, because that is not how they got their posts. They were
disproportionately involved in the killings. MINUSTAH and UNPOL did
not object to this practice.
"Also, MINUSTAH and UNPOL share
some of the blame because they failed to live up to their own
Security Council mandate to protect civilians from imminent harm.
Several times MINUSTAH, including UNPOL officers, watched as the HNP
shot into peaceful demonstrations. MINUSTAH provided backup to
deadly HNP operations."
Concannon said that MINUSTAH has
also carried out several massacres. The most recent occurred on July
6, 2005, when UN troops entered the poor Cite Soleil neighbourhood
and indiscriminately sprayed houses with gunfire, killing and
wounding many men, women and children.
Anthony Fenton,
co-author of Waging War on the Poor Majority: Canada in Haiti, said
that, "by shifting blame onto `rogue elements' within the HNP, Muir
attempts to deflect the mounting documentation of direct involvement
or complicity of the UN military and police in countless atrocities.
It is far easier to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Haitians as
inherently violence prone than to be held accountable for helping to
oversee a continuous campaign of repression which began with the
arrival of foreign occupiers after the February 29, 2004 coup
d'etat."
Fenton noted that "Muir neglects to mention that
the HNP recruits, who are being trained and supplied with arms by
the US, are not being vetted - as per the supposed UN mandate - for
human rights abuses. Given Muir and the Canadian government's
obvious desire to deny accountability for their actions, we have to
ask ourselves who the real `rogue elements' are in Haiti."
From People's Voice
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