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Come to Haiti

......... by Melinda Miles November 29, 2004


Part One: We are not Thankful

Part Two: Why You Should Come to Haiti

We are not Thankful

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the States, but today in Haiti we are not thankful. We are not thankful for the brutal repression, the escalating violence, the targeting of those rendered voiceless and nameless by poverty. We are not thankful for an occupying force that observes human rights violations and beatings and does not intervene on behalf of innocent civilians. We are not thankful for the poverty and desperation which, coupled with the proliferation of weapons, have left the urban areas crawling with armed gangs, available to political groups who can afford their special low rates. We are not thankful for the soldiers of the disbanded Haitian Army, who have taken over the streets of Port-au-Prince where they are raping women and young girls, and shooting street children for sport.

The brutal, painful and hopeless reports coming out of Haiti prove that this country has reached its lowest point in ten years (1), and that we have come out the other end of the tunnel we entered when 20,000 U.S. Marines occupied the country and "restored democracy" in 1994. Here on the other end we can't even see the light from the beginning. All we see are the concrete results of the U.S. foreign policy towards Haiti over the last ten years - the last two hundred years, really.

First we see the Haitian Army. Created by the U.S. during its first occupation in 1915, the Forces Armee d'Haiti or FADH has never faced a foreign enemy. In fact, its one and only enemy has always been the Haitian people. The peasants, demanding a decent plot of land so they can grow enough food to survive, the constantly growing ranks of slum dwellers, clogging the streets of the city. The FADH leadership received generous sponsorship from the U.S. throughout the last century. Training from U.S. soldiers, weapons from U.S. corporations, side jobs for U.S. intelligence, and so on.

We see the Haitian Army doing again what it has always done well: systematically eliminating it's enemy, the Haitian people. In their hands are uzis, machine guns, AK 47s. A Haiti Support Group press release, "Alarming Increase in the Number of Rapes" was issued today. It explains,

In an Associated Press report dated 22 October, human rights lawyer Renan Hédouville, from the Comité des Avocats pour le Respect des Libertés Individuelles (CARLI), was quoted as saying, "In the month of August, for example, more than 50 cases of rape by former military were reported to our hot line."

The Haiti Support Group statement continues:

The reported increase in rape reported to CARLI was confirmed by the recent figures released by health centres run by GHESKIO (Groupe Haïtien d'Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections Opportunistes). In the three months, July to September, 81 women - all under the age of 30 - were admitted to GHESKIO centres for treatment and counselling following sexual assaults. The majority of assaults took place in the metropolitan region of Port-au-Prince. According to GHESKIO, 54% of rapes are committed by armed men in the victim's home.

CARLI's Hédouville says that the violence is being committed against women and young girls in poor neighbourhoods in other parts of the country, as well as in the capital. A UNICEF team deployed to the city of Gonaïves from 20 October to 2 November reported a "problem of rape of teenage girls", but further details are as yet unavailable. Despite the presence of UN troops, Gonaïves has remained under the de facto control of armed gangs since the uprising at the beginning of 2004. (2)

Women and young girls are not the only victims of former soldiers. Another group is being targeted in what appears to be an extermination campaign. Street children in Port-au-Prince, mostly young boys, are being killed "for sport", according to Michael Brewer, who runs an organization called Haitian Street Kids. His chilling reports of the hunt and kill style employed by former soldiers is more than one can bear:

At approximately 7:pm in the evening, a carload of these ex-military members. drove by the park [Place Boyer in Petionville] and stopped where 20 to 30 children were sleeping. The ones that were not asleep alerted the others, and they all began to run. Three were caught by the men: one 7-year old by the name of Linxson, one 12-year-old and a 15-year-old. The boys were first beaten severely. Black bags were then put over their heads and tied around their necks, and then they were shot and killed. The bodies were placed in the trunk of the car and taken away from the scene.

One week earlier, a nine-year-old named Emmanuel was running from a group of these men after he refused to come to them when they called him. They shot him in the leg with an assault rifle to stop him. Three of the men casually walked up to where the child was lying on the ground and crying. They ridiculed him, then shot him again with pistols and a shotgun, for a total of 4 more times.

One of my children, a 14 year old boy named Makinzi, was murdered as he was walking down the side of the road about three weeks ago...

The incidents I have given as examples are just a very few of the daily murders of these children that are committed by these groups of men every day and night in every part of the city. There are "dump zones" where the decomposing bodies of little boys can be found any day of the week. I have found many. This is blatant genocide. The merciless atrocities committed on these defenseless, harmless and innocent street children go completely unnoticed, unreported, and uninvestigated. (3)

Brewer was not the only individual to report the targeting of children this week. An independent human rights monitor in Port-au-Prince, attorney Judy Dacruz of Fondasyon Dwa Pou Tout Moun, reported on people killed on November 18, Haiti's Battle of Vertiere's holiday. She explains in her report that two demonstrations were planned for the day, but shooting in certain areas began early in the morning and deterred activists from going into the street. These areas, known as katyè popilè, or heavily-populated poor neighborhoods, have been war zones for several months. The death toll is unknown since the residents of these areas are ignored and silenced and their deaths, like those of street children, usually go unreported.

On November 18,

At least five persons have been confirmed killed: One man and one woman were killed in the neighborhoods of Bel Air/Delmas 2: the man by unidentified civilians in the area who killed him because he was allegedly a spy and the woman allegedly by police gunfire while she was passing by. Witnesses have reported that CIMO police officers in beige camouflage uniforms were shooting in the area as early as 9.00 a.m. Another man who was hit in the eye, also allegedly by police gunfire while watching the shootings from the balcony of building, died in hospital yesterday, November 20. Although his condition was critical, medical negligence may also have contributed to his death. Armed civilians from the resistance group based in Bel Air retaliated with gunfire to the police's shootings. MINUSTAH troops were also present in the area on that day.

The bodies of two young men killed by gunshots were found by their relatives the next day at the morgue. They left their houses nearby Grande Rue around 5.00 p.m. for a dance party and did not return home that night. Witnesses have revealed that police were shooting in that area from 5.00 p.m. until late in the night. It is still unknown whether other armed groups were involved in the shootings at Grande Rue on that day.

Several other wounded by gunshots (among whom a street kid of 12 years old) were at the General Hospital later in the day seeking treatment. They revealed that they were either shot in the neighborhood of Bel Air or Grande Rue.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that many more persons have been killed (notably from the area of La Saline) and wounded on that day. The morgue at the General Hospital is still not working and employees have revealed that they believe dead bodies are being taken directly to Titanyen. [Titanyen has long been the favorite dumping spot of bodies the Haitian Army and paramilitary killing squads.] (4)

How is it possible that the Haitian Army, disbanded by Aristide and disarmed by the U.S. Marines in 1994, can have so many weapons and complete impunity under the U.S.-backed government today? Disarmament in 1994 was roundly ridiculed - the buy back program brought in a pitiful amount of weapons and no efforts were made to find caches of arms hidden throughout the Haitian countryside. And unless the former soldiers turn their sights towards targeting the private sector and its investments, they will meet no resistance in their campaign from the regime of interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who announced his intentions to go through with elections in November 2005 from Paris, regardless of the violence rocking Port-au-Prince.

No, in Haiti we are not thankful for the Haitian Army.

The gangs of Port-au-Prince, Gonaives and other cities like Petit Goave are another thing we are not thankful for today. It seems that all of Aristide's critics underestimated his ability to juggle these small, well-armed groups. His mistakes in dealing with Gonaives' Cannibal Army were widely criticized and were even worthy of OAS declarations. But his success in preserving a fragile and desperate peace among the warring factions of Port-au-Prince could not be fully appreciated before now, when we see what his absence has created.

Gang leaders in Cite Soleil, which has become a terrifying place, claim that Aristide channeled funds into their neighborhoods, keeping each afloat so they would not have to attack each other. A New York Times journalist who dared to cross through a barren burnt out tract of homes between two warring neighborhoods in Cite Soleil was accosted by several armed men, and in a scene that summons movie images of South Central L.A., the gunmen were pacified when their bosses arrived. "A new Mitsubishi S.U.V. drove up. Inside were three senior gunmen with eyes like stones. They stared for a moment, nodded and drove away." (5)

Residents of Carrefour and Bel Air, where gangs also called bandits have been circulating and terrorizing the area for months, claim that these individuals used to have jobs when President Aristide was in the country. Some worked at the palace as security forces, or had posts and were fired after he was ousted. Now they have nothing but the weapons in their hands, and they are victimizing other poor people like themselves.

Whether or not these stories paint an accurate picture of the armed groups in Port-au-Prince, it is undeniable that these groups are gaining momentum and power. Under Aristide they were meeting at the Presidential Palace to negotiate a peace agreement.

No, we are not thankful for the armed gangs of Port-au-Prince and Gonaives.

Violence comes in other forms as well. The orange hair of malnutrition and the starving children on every corner of Haiti are our other victims, our constant reminders of the powerful forces that reach into Haiti from beyond it's borders, leaving it's children with no water, no food, no health care and no hope for education.

The U.S.-led international embargo on humanitarian aid against the Aristide-Neptune government had very concrete effects on health care, and access to potable water. Efforts made by that administration to free aid - including the removal of government subsidies for petrol products - have forced prices for basic food products to rise. More expensive gas has meant another rush to the mountains to find the last few trees to cut down for charcoal production, a cheaper alternative to a gas stove. Tropical storms this summer killed more than 3,000 in Haiti, all a result of deforestation and lack of infrastructure.

The roots of Haiti's environmental devastation can be found in the history of it's colonization by the French, and it's re-colonization by American corporations when the 1915 occupation gave them ownership of the most fertile Haitian lands. Thousands of acres were clear-cut for rubber production, sugar plantations, and produce for export. When dictator Francois Duvalier was in power he invited the international aid industry to Haiti, bowing to the economic austerity measures required. Textile assembly factories responded to his tax breaks and other incentives, building a swath of sweatshops in Port-au-Prince. Without land or work in the countryside, people flocked to Port-au-Prince to compete for the horrific prospects inside the park indistryel, the industrial park.

During casual interviews with two dozen residents of Cap-Haitien a little over a week ago, every single respondent named food, water and jobs as the things their community and Haiti as a whole need the most right now. A similar poll in the rural areas outside Jacmel gives the same results. Poverty is violent and it's an epidemic that is killing Haiti's children and their parents.

In Haiti today we are not thankful for the pillage of our natural resources, and the sweatshops that suck the life out of young mothers in the cities. We are not thankful for the overfilled slums of Port-au-Prince and the rocky, hostile land where once there was fertile soil. We are not thankful for the violence of poverty.

Today is Thanksgiving Day in the States, and millions of families are gathered around tables of food in their homes, safe from the harsh realities that are confronting Haitians families today. For those of you who will offer a prayer, thought or meditation for Haiti as you celebrate today, please know:

In Haiti we are thankful for those courageous people who tell and re-tell the story of the Haitian people. We are thankful for the delegations and medical mission teams and twinned parish groups who will not be chased away from serving their Haitian brothers and sisters by armed thugs and threats.

Please continue to tell the story of Haiti.

(1) See: The Observer, Reed Lindsay, October 31, 2004: "Police Terror Sweeps Across Haiti"; Reuters, November 23, 2004: "Human rights problems in Haiti worry U.N.'s Annan"; Reuters, October 29, 2004: "At Least 170 Killed by Gunfire"; reports on the Institute for Justice and Democracy website, www.ijdh.org and the Let Haiti Live Coalition website, www.lethaitilive.org. Other news items can be found in the HaitiReports on www.haitikonpay.org. (2) Haiti Support Group Press Release, November 25, 2004: "Alarming Increase in the Number of Rapes. Website: www.haitisupport.gn.apc.org (3) Michael Brewer, Open Letter, November 24, 2004: "Haitian Street Kids, Inc. - Child Murders - Death Squads"; email: haitianstreetkids@rescueteam.com (4) Judy Dacruz, Fondasyon Dwa Pou Tout Moun: "Renewed violence in PAP on Vertières day, November 18" (5) New York Times, Michael Kamber, November 2, 2004: "Haiti's Political Vacuum Stokes Flames of Gang Violence"

Why You Should Come to Haiti

As I've written already above, I believe that Haiti is in its lowest place in ten years, and that in many ways we have come full circle. There are ways in which it is much worse now - the international community is pre-occupied with Iraq, Palestine, and so many other places. And the Haiti of today does not have the one terror or death squad as it did in the past (the makouts, the FRAPH). Today Haiti has the former soldiers, playing their same old role, combined with a yet unknown number of armed gangs.

All of the information I included in the report above comes from emails I received today. As I read through them I felt discouraged, helpless, paralyzed in the face of so much that is wrong. Then I received a barrage of emails from people who have been planning to come to Haiti to bear witness among their Haitian brothers and sisters and to give service or document their plight. In the last several days an email has circulated the internet far and wide, telling people they should not come to Haiti.

I started to hit rock bottom in terms of hope, started feeling truly hopeless. Then I remembered something I have told myself so many times through the years, hopelessness is a luxury Haitians cannot afford. Therefore, we cannot be hopeless either.

I will not repeat the details of the email, although I will say that it includes the details of two very grave and harrowing events. I feel compelled, as an American living in Haiti who has led more than a dozen delegations here (and is planning four in the first three months of 2005), to respond to a few of the points raised in the argument for people to cancel their trips to Haiti. I believe it is reasonably safe to come to Haiti if you take certain precautions and make security a priority, and furthermore, I believe foreigners coming to Haiti can have a positive impact on a situation that becomes more grave each day.

1. The international airport in Port-au-Prince has always been a very dangerous place. Delegations, tourists, members of the diaspora and average Haitians arriving at the airport have always needed to take dramatic efforts to make sure they are not followed. Incidents have been consistently reported in the ten years I have been traveling to Haiti about people being followed from the airport, held at gun point or temporarily kidnapped, robbed, beaten, etc. Some have been killed. Anyone who comes to Haiti by air must land at the Port-au-Prince international airport, and everyone must take extreme precaution when leaving the airport as attacks there are routine.

Banks in Port-au-Prince are similarly dangerous, and for the same reasons. People arriving in the country or leaving the bank are assumed to be carrying a decent amount of money, and are therefore targets. The last highly publicized murder of a white American in Port-au-Prince was the death of Maureen Nielsen at the hands of thieves outside a bank a couple of years ago.

Working with experienced delegation leaders, guest houses and Haitian staff are the best precaution you can take when arriving in Port-au-Prince, and for any travel in Haiti.

2. Port-au-Prince is a dangerous place in the sense that it has neighborhoods that are extremely unsafe for any foreigner (and most Haitians) to visit. These places are well known and can easily be avoided. A good driver or delegation leader will keep an ear on the radio whenever the group is in Port-au-Prince so they can be aware of where potential problems are developing. Human rights monitors and delegation leaders have reported that they are able to travel safely in Port-au-Prince, save specific danger zones.

3. Haitians who choose to work with teams from other countries are capable of making their own decisions about whether or not they want to put their lives at risk, just as the participants in those teams are.

If you are concerned for safety of the Haitians who are working with your delegation, have an honest and open conversation with them about the risks and allow them to make their own decisions about whether or not to work with you. To assume that removing your services, the job you offer and the protection your presence can give (even if only temporarily) is the best way to help them is a terrible mistake. Your Haitian friends and colleagues are living in Haiti every day, even when you are not here. They are the only ones who can tell you if your presence is welcome, and what they need or do not need.

4. Work with others to make sure your delegation has a positive impact when you are on the ground. Medical missions have an immediate concrete impact, one that is needed now more than ever - with water and food so scarce people are more susceptible to common illnesses becoming fatalities. If you are planning an investigative delegation, or a visit to share solidarity and bear witness, contact folks working on the ground to see how your team can fit into the ongoing efforts to build momentum and reach broader goals. Make sure meeting with Haitians who are living in difficult situations won't put them in greater danger, and plan creative ways to have an immediate positive impact on their lives whenever possible.

Always be sensitive of those you are working with. Do not give people money where others can see. Make sure your days in Port-au-Prince end early enough for your drivers and translators to arrive safely home before dark. Ask experienced folks on the ground for a list of other safety precautions.

Please don't cancel your plans to travel to Haiti because of biased international reporting, U.S. State Dept travel advisories, or even because you have learned that people with white skin have recently been victimized in Port-au-Prince. The Haitian people are being victimized every day, and they need your solidarity now more than ever.

If you have read this far, I am thankful for you today as well. I will close this letter from Haiti, as night falls over this small, beautiful, troubled island country. I leave you with the profound and heartfelt words of friend and colleague Ron Voss, who runs the most heavily frequented guest house in Port-au-Prince, the Visitation House.

Melinda Miles Co-Director Konbit Pou Ayiti/KONPAY www.haitikonpay.org Jacmel, Haiti


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