Haiti Rumors Fly as Ex-dictator Stays Mum in Hotel

by Administrator 18. January 2011 10:37
Most of you know that we have deep connections with The Republic of Haiti so one of the
issues that we are watching with great interest is the return of former dictator "Baby
Doc" to Port au Prince.  One word that has always characterized our decade and a half
connection with Haiti is the word "interesting."  I can take you to a place, that is
several acres large which was the dumping grounds of the victims of political crimes and
reprisals during the Duvalier regimes, well before the earthquake.  You literally could
not place your foot down anywhere when I first went there in late 1994 or early 1995
without stepping on human remains.  There were bed sheets, woman's night gowns, small
plastic infant sandals, small skulls with bullet holes in the sides of their heads
everywhere.  Crabs still prowled the place looking for scraps of flesh and ligaments to
eat. The place screamed of nights of terror that allegedly occurred during the Duvalier
and subsequent General Cedras regimes.  It wasn't even a mass grave, it was just a dumping
grounds for the bodies of the victims of these murders that clearly included whole
families.  I asked a colleague, why the kids?  The only answer we could come up with was
that by killing the children, they kept them from growing up and becoming future enemies
filled with hatred against them and becoming potential adversaries.

My trip there was to provide security for former President Aristide, under the US State
Department contract, while he participated in and watched as members of the Catholic
Church from Haiti's now demolished National Cathedral consecrated the ground.  One of the
events was to plant some palm trees in the ground and the idea was to make the place a
living memorial.  Holes had been dug to place these young palm trees in and I could
observe bones at every depth of the hole protruding into the holes that the trees were
being planted in.  One elderly lady was so moved by the event that she broke through the
cordon of security as then President Aristide placed a tree into one of these holes and
started filling the hole to securely plant the tree.  This elderly lady grabbed what
appeared to be a human rib bone and started helping to fill that hole in by using that rib
bone to scoop dirt into the hole. It was so moving to watch her do this and she clearly
presented no threat to our protectee so we just let her continue.  She wasn't crying, she
was smiling.  She was clearly a relative of someone killed during that time frame and
likely dumped there and was happy that the ground was being consecrated, recognized and
memorialized.

I can also tell you that when I first went to Haiti's National Palace in 1994 there was an
indoor pistol range on the ground floor of the building.  We looked at it as something to
possibly restore in order to provide training opportunities for our security agents and
for the fledgling Haitian Presidential Security Unit - Haiti's then newly trained Secret
Service equivalent.  Though I doubt that forensic examinations were ever done, I can tell
you from personal observation that there appeared to be human hair and bone fragments
along the backstop wall which was constructed of slanted metal bars that served to deflect
the rounds downward into a bullet trap.  Having been a criminal investigator in the US
Army, that was what we would have called a clue.  That clue was that executions may well
have been carried out there.  By whom, I know not but I doubt they were buttering pigs for
dinner in there...

There are also two solitary confinement cell areas in the Dessalines Barracks area of the
National Palace Compound.  The Dessalines Barracks is where the unit of Haiti's Army that
used to provide protection for the President(s)/Dictator(s) used to live.  Those barracks
are an integral part of that National Palace Compound.  When you went to look at those
cells, the interior of those doors were lined with sheet metal.  People who had been
confined there appeared to have tried to peal that metal back with what had to be their
bare hands in escape attempts or out of pure frustration.  Though curious about what the
graffiti on the walls of those cells might have said, I was almost glad I couldn't read
the Creole it was written in.  I can tell you without doubt that while I remained
connected with the presidential security operations there during parts of three
administrations, neither that range nor those cells were ever used for those purposes
during that time frame.  Felt kind of like we made something of a difference there...

Later in my career, I got to lead another US State Department protection contract, one to
Bosnia and Herzegovina. This was shortly after the Dayton Peace Accords were signed.  I
had occasion to take our Principal to Srebrenica where international forensic
anthropologists we exhuming mass graves as it was alleged that the Serbians killed some
8,000 Bosnian men and boys from that community and dumped them in mass graves during that
war. Looking for evidence of crimes against humanity and war crimes I guess.  At least
they had them buried, though probably not out of decency but more likely motivated to
conceal the evidence of their crimes.  From that moment on, I always wondered why the
international community didn't do the same thing for the obvious atrocities committed in
Haiti and why no one ever did the same forensic examination thing at that desolate dumping
grounds in Haiti that I have described...

What will be interesting, especially in light of the contested election results, will be
to watch what the Haitian Government and Criminal Justice System does and what the
international community calls for in this case.  Given that a former Haitian Army Officer,
Guy Phillipe, was allowed to run for president in that country after leading an armed
overthrow of their constitutional government in 2004, allegedly killing several members of
the Haitian National Police at various locations within that nation and at least two
border guards at a crossing between Haiti and the Dominican Republic during that process,
I'm not sure justice is something that has taken hold yet in that still developing
democracy.

As the following article will show, current President, Rene Preval, has publically stated
before that if Baby Doc ever returned to that island nation, he would be arrested and
prosecuted.  So far, that hasn't happened. If it doesn't then Jean Bertrand Aristide may
well try to become then next comeback kid, for the third time, as well.

Now this is all interesting, at least to us, to watch...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110118/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cb_haiti_ex_dictator_returns

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