September 27, 2001

Cites CIP's Morrell

Human Rights Group Cites a Setback in Haiti

By DAVID GONZALEZ

The rights setback comes on top of Haiti's many other problems, which include a political stalemate, withering poverty and the freezing of foreign aid.
The report warns that freedom of expression is elusive in Haiti and that some critics of the government have been singled out for physical attack by people claiming to be loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The report also faults the police, judges and courts for being unable to guarantee security and justice, especially citing the hundreds of people killed after a military coup toppled Mr. Aristide in 1991. The coup came just seven months after he was elected in Haiti's first national democratic elections.

According to Amnesty International, the problems now are not nearly as grim as the terror that swept the nation in the years immediately after the coup. Still, the human rights group argues, they put at risk the gains made since a multinational force restored Mr. Aristide to office in 1994.

The next year, Mr. Aristide turned over power to a hand-picked successor, but he was elected again last year, in November. Much of the international community boycotted the campaign, withholding election observers, out of lingering concerns over fraudulent local and parliamentary elections in 2000.

"There has been significant progress, but it is threatened now," said William F. Schulz, the executive director of Amnesty International U.S.A. "It is a situation that threatens to unravel at a far faster pace."

"I'm afraid if the concerns we raise are not addressed," Mr. Schulz added, "then Haiti may well slip back into the kind of human rights disaster that it has experienced for much of its history."

In the months after the killing of Jean Dominique, a popular radio commentator, in April 2000, other journalists have been threatened and several radio stations have been attacked. The death of Mr. Dominique is still unresolved, and according to the report, the judge investigating it briefly resigned, saying that he had been stymied by political pressure and threats. He returned after receiving government reassurances.

Members of opposition political parties have also been harassed and threatened, the report said, often while the police do nothing to stop groups claiming to be supporters of the coalition in power, Lavalas.

This summer, when armed men attacked several police stations, the government arrested 41 people, mostly members of opposition groups, only to release them without their being charged.

The government has successfully prosecuted several dozen soldiers and officials who carried out two of the country's worst massacres, but the courts continue to be crippled, the report said.

Leslie Voltaire, a member of Mr. Aristide's cabinet, denied there was any repression of public opinion.

"We have many radio stations around the country and you can hear anything on them," Mr. Voltaire said. "I think freedom of expression is a right."

Mr. Voltaire, who is the minister for Haitians living abroad, said that the government was committed to strengthening the judicial system and that it had undertaken training programs for the police and judges.

"We have inherited some structures that are not that easy to change, because you need the education of police and judges," he said.

He said that the biggest roadblock to progress had been the continuing standoff between Lavalas and the Democratic Convergence, a loose coalition of opposition parties. Mr. Voltaire said Lavalas was willing to allow new elections for seven Senate seats that were disputed by the opposition and international observers, and to permit elections ahead of schedule for the other seats.

But opposition groups have doubted Mr. Aristide's sincerity, saying that whatever concessions he made were done in order to free up about $500 million in foreign aid that had been frozen for years.

"The situation is pretty dismal overall," said James Morrell, the research director for the Center for International Policy, a nonprofit group based in Washington that monitors human rights and helped Mr. Aristide during his exile. "You can only take a very limited degree of hope from these latest moves, because the twists and turns in the past have not led to a fundamental improvement."

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