Haiti's Armed Groups Refuse To Lay Down Weapons

by Marty Logan

(IPS) -- "Without disarmament, Haiti's democracy will remain at risk," U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said on his recent visit to the battered nation, adding, "we call on all armed groups to lay down their weapons and allow the duly constituted authorities to impose the rule of law".

The message did not travel far. Standing next to him at a press conference Apr. 5 at the Port-au-Prince airport, interim Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue signalled a softer approach: "We are asking that people with armed guns refrain from using them, because you cannot have access to political process nor power through use of guns and/or violence".

Since they flew former Prime Minister Jean-Bertrand Aristide out of the country Feb. 29, in what Aristide calls a kidnapping, U.S. officials have repeatedly pledged to disarm the rebels who led the uprising that ended in his exit, along with other armed criminals and thugs who today wield their weapons freely in most parts of the country outside the capital.

But events on the ground, and even statements from U.S. military officials leading a multinational force in the country of eight million people, belie that promise. They also suggest that neither the new government nor the international powers behind it are seriously interested in disarmament.

"Armed young people in Les Cayes brandish their weapons at the slightest altercation," said a report issued by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) Thursday.

"Curfew is still in force from midnight to 5AM. Police forces throughout the country are gradually being revised but they are still understaffed".

"Due to the state of impunity the number of criminal activities -- hold-ups, kidnappings, robberies, rape, summary executions and acts of looting -- committed by armed gangs is increasing. Aristide's supporters feel threatened," it added.

Humanitarian groups are slowly resuming their activities throughout the country, said the OCHA report -- but aid workers are not the gangs' targets.

"Amnesty International (AI) is particularly concerned for the safety of judges, prosecutors, criminal investigators, victims, witnesses and human rights defenders involved in prosecutions relating to past human rights abuses," said the group, reporting on a just ended 15-day mission to Haiti.

"Judge Napela Saintil, the chief judge in the trial of those responsible for the 1994 Raboteau massacre, was severely beaten on Mar. 30 by an armed man. The judge told Amnesty International delegates that his attacker had threatened him for the part he played in the conviction, in absentia, of Louis Jodel Chamblain, one of the participants in the massacre," added the AI statement.

Chamblain emerged earlier this year to join the anti-Aristide uprising led by former police chief Guy Philippe. Both Chamblain and another rebel leader, Jean Pierre Baptiste (known as Jean Tatoune) were sentenced to forced labour for life for participating in the Raboteau Massacre while they were members of the FRAPH paramilitary group, which effectively ruled Haiti after Aristide was deposed in a 1991 coup.

One week ago, Justice Minister Bernard Gousse warned that trying to disarm the heavily armed rebels with few poorly-equipped police could "spark off the fire again". "I have been urged that I have not arrested enough people, but I don't want a judicial lynching. I want to respect due process," he told Reuters.

One non-governmental organization (NGO) calls that stance unacceptable. "This reasoning is exactly the same as that put forward by the Aristide government when it was pressed to disarm the so-called 'chimeres' (pro-Aristide gangs), and if it was unacceptable then, it is surely unacceptable now," said the Britain-based Haiti Support Group in a statement Tuesday.

It called efforts to date, "an extremely limited disarmament campaign, which has not even touched the armed irregular forces commanded by Guy Philippe, Louis-Jodel Chamblain, Gilbert Dragon, Joseph Jean-Baptiste, and others ... the meagre disarmament efforts that have so far taken place have focused on pro-Aristide shantytowns in the capital".

Haitian officials also said this week they have arrested officials from the Aristide administration, including former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert.

But Amnesty warned: "By only arresting Lavalas supporters the government is sending the wrong message. Known perpetrators of serious human rights violations among the rebel forces must also be taken into custody".

As a first step, the government must establish a nationwide disarmament plan, added Amnesty, one with full support from the multinational force.

"U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and the French authorities, part of the U.S.-led multinational forces, have talked about the need to disarm, but that has not been followed by the determined action that is required," it added.

"The international community must take disarmament seriously now, and work closely with the Haitian National Police to that end," added AI.

Reports from Les Cayes suggest that business owners have turned over their guns to a gang calling itself the 'Front', made up of civilians and ex-members of the former Haitian army.

Such a development is predictable, according to one arms expert.

"One of the weaknesses of saying 'disarmament isn't our priority or our mission; we're here for stability', I think, is you allow that cycle to perpetuate, where (people say) 'we'll just hold on to our guns, we'll have them if we need them'," said Rachel Stohl, a senior analyst at the Centre for Defence Information in Washington.

"Weapons collections programmes aren't just for the individual. They're for, really, the community, and for building trust and creating an environment of stability," she told IPS.

Stohl suggests Washington is reluctant to push Haiti to disarm for ideological reasons. The administration is "very keen to talk about destruction, stockpile management and all of the things that go with it, but there's a real hesitancy to talk about taking guns away from people, whoever those people are".

"There's a lot of pressure from gun groups to not have that become institutionalised," Stohl added,

Experts meeting at Washington's Inter-American Dialogue on Friday were pessimistic on prospects for stability, pointing to indications that new Interior Minister Herard Abraham is planning to restore the military, which Aristide disbanded when he regained power in 1994.

"Once the military has established control in the countryside, they are not going to give it back (without negotiations)," said Jocelyn McCalla of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights.

Noting Abraham's power to appoint officials in municipalities, Robert Maguire of Trinity College in Washington suggested, "this might become a convenient place to put resurgent military power".

"They are coming back," he added. "This is a very scary scenario."