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Ex-soldiers in Haiti get back pay, refuse to disarm

by Lyn Duff

The U.S.-appointed interim Haitian government restarted a nationwide program of cash payments to former members of the disbanded Haitian Army this month, despite international criticism that the demobilized soldiers have no legal claim to demand monetary payments and human rights reports blaming the former soldiers for gross violations of human rights, including the mass rape of women in the popular neighborhoods.

In 2004, Gerald Latortue, a businessman of Haitian descent who lives in Baca Raton, Florida, was appointed Haiti's prime minister after a coalition of drug traffickers, thugs and demobilized soldiers overthrew the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide in a bloody U.S.-backed coup.
The soldiers, who were dismissed when Aristide disbanded the Haitian Army in 1995 because of its involvement in rampant human rights abuses against the Haitian people, demanded millions in "back pay" for paychecks they would have received had Aristide not dispersed the army nine years before. Latortue readily acquiesced to the former soldiers demands.

Payments totaling 200 million gourdes - about $7,000,000 in U.S. dollars - were made in late 2004 and early 2005 but stopped when the government failed to follow through on promises to release more funds, says former Colonel Jean Claude Jeudy, who coordinates the Demobilized Soldiers Management Office.
Last month, Jeudy announced that a second block of 39 million gourdes ($1,300,000), was released by Latortue to make payments to 962 former soldiers. An additional 81 million gourdes ($2,700,000) will be released to pay former officers, says Jeudy, some of whom have been accused by international human rights observers of persecuting and killing members of the pro-democracy movement. Jeudy says he estimates that a total of 1,826,000,000 gourdes ($60,860,000) will eventually be paid to demobilized soldiers.

Activists say they are angry about Latortue's plan. "While hardworking Haitians starve or die of preventable diseases, the government is paying soldiers from a non-existent army for not having worked," says human rights attorney Brian Concannon who directs the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
"Even worse, some on the payroll are convicted murders," says Concannon.

Some of the ex-solider funds are coming directly from the United States. Unlike other countries, whose demobilized soldiers are required to participate in reintegration programs conducted by USAID's Office of Transitional Assistance as a prerequisite for receiving cash payments, no such programs are being offered for ex-combatants in Haiti, according to USAID press officer Jessica Garcia. Garcia said that the agency had no comment on Latortue's decision restarting payments to former soldiers.
The United Nations contributed $2.8 million to help pay the ex-soldiers. However, despite their willingness to accept the indemnity they were offered, the former soldiers refused to disarm, said U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

"Payments (to demobilized soldiers) should be linked to disarmament and entry into a comprehensive disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration program," Annan said.
Fewer than 1 percent of the demobilized soldiers have surrendered their weapons, say human rights observers. "Some of those arms were used to launch a revolt to overthrow democracy in 2004 and to persecute members of Lavalas and the pro-democracy movement," says American nurse Anne Lautan who runs a public health clinic in Port-au-Prince that often treats victims of human rights offenses.

"We still have former soldiers running around here, working as police attaches or brutalizing the population, raping women," says Lautan. "The former soldiers haven't disarmed even though the U.N. and Latortue's government has been kowtowing to them. When you have all these armed ex-soldiers running around with impunity, you have to ask why. Why isn't anyone disarming them and why is the government - which has so little money to begin with - giving them paychecks?"
Following the overthrow of the democratic government in 2004, the United Nations estimated that Haiti would need $35 million in emergency aid. Only $15 million in international aid has been raised thus far, more than half of which has gone to demobilized soldiers.

Lyn Duff (LynDuff@aol.com) is a reporter currently based in Port-au-Prince. She first traveled to Haiti in 1995 to help establish a children's radio station and has since covered Haiti extensively for Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints, heard on KPFA weekdays at 5 p.m., and other local and national media.


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