6-14-06, 8:52 am
Two different RCMP officers have been in charge of the United Nations Police Mission (UNPOL): David Beer, who came to Haiti directly from Iraq in May 2004, where he was teaching counter-insurgency tactics, and Graham Muir, who replaced Beer in mid-2005.
Today, Muir commands a 1,600-strong UNPOL contingent that includes 100 RCMP and Quebec Provincial Police officers, under the mandate of the Brazilian led-UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), which is responsible for training and overseeing the Haitian National Police (HNP). As UNPOL Commissioner, Muir takes part in all high-level planning and strategy meetings, be they military or policing.
Canada is also involved in other ways with the HNP. The Canadian International Development Agency hired retired Montreal Police Chief Claude Rochon to work closely with the HNP high command to create a new 'strategic framework' for policing in Haiti.
According to a University of Miami Law school report, Haiti: Human rights Investigation, released in 2005, the HNP has degenerated into a murderous force under the RCMP-led UNPOL. Arbitrary arrests and extra-judicial murder of suspects and witnesses are routine Haitian police practices, states the report's author, human rights attorney Thomas Griffin.
Griffin and other University of Miami Law school investigators spoke with HNP officers who agreed to be interviewed only on conditions of anonymity because they feared reprisals from fellow police. These unidentified officers were frustrated and angry because since the overthrow of Aristide, honest, well trained officers are passed over for promotion. Only former soldiers without police training have been promoted to high command positions. In turn, these officers only promote other former soldiers.
Now, former soldiers occupy most municipal police chief positions, reports Griffin. Officers expressed frustration working with ex-soldiers because of their lack of police knowledge and skills. The Haitian police officers also complained that their commanders are often corrupt.
Aristide's government disbanded the Haitian military in 1995 because of its brutal history of killing, torture, extortion and coups. Many of Haiti's military officers graduated from the Georgia-based School of the Americas (renamed in 2001 as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation), where the US military trained many of Latin America's most notorious human rights abusers.
During HNP operations in poor neighbourhoods, unidentified officers told investigators, their superiors order the killing of suspects as well as witnesses. Former Police Chief Leon Charles ordered officers to suppress opposition demonstrations, states Griffin.
'One officer stated that many good officers (defined by the officers interviewed as those who refuse bribes, are well trained, love their work and country, and refuse orders to commit summary executions) would like to speak out but cannot out of fear for their jobs and their lives,' writes Griffin.
Reports from the International Catholic Institute (ICI) and Amnesty International support the Miami Law school's report. According to the ICI, 'many of the 5,000 strong [HNP] force have links to the previous military or have been involved in drug rackets, kidnappings, extra-judicial killings or other illegal activities.' An Amnesty press release says 'there are serious problems with the ... functioning of the police,' and accuses HNP officers not only of summary executions, but also illegal and arbitrary arrests, torture and rape.
Even MINUSTAH head Juan Gabriel Valdes stated at a UN Security Council Meeting in March that newly elected President Rene Preval will not be able to make any changes in Haiti until, among other things, the HNP is reformed. He said many police officers have committed grave human rights violations.
However, critics charge that MINUSTAH, whose military forces accompany the HNP during raids into poor neighbourhoods, shares responsibility for the HNP's abuses. Doctors Without Borders, the Haiti Information Project News Agency, and numerous independent journalists have also reported that independent MINUSTAH operations in poor neighbourhoods have resulted in dozens of civilian deaths.
Last November 15, human rights groups in Washington, DC, filed two petitions with the Organization of American States Inter-American Commission on Human Rights seeking legal redress from the US and Brazilian governments for human rights violations. While the HNP is responsible for killing thousands of innocent civilians, argue the groups, they would not have been able to undertake these killings without arms supplied by the US and the assistance of Brazilian led-MINUSTAH.
UNPOL head Muir stated in an interview on September 27, 2005 that 'rogue elements within the HNP' are responsible for murder and other human rights violations. He said that UNPOL is trying to weed out these 'rogue elements.'
Brian Concannon Jr. of the Oregon-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti said that Muir is only partially right, and contends that MINUSTAH and the RCMP-led UNPOL share responsibility for the murderous direction that the HNP has taken.
'Some of the killings are done by rogue elements of the Haitian police,' stated Concannon. 'But many of these rogue elements were intentionally integrated into the force, without public objection from MINUSTAH or UNPOL. Starting in 2004, General Herard Abraham (former minister of the interior and retired head of the Haitian armed forces) started integrating former soldiers into the force, bypassing the regulations for police recruitment and promotion. These new officers were not loyal to the police hierarchy and system, because that is not how they got their posts. They were disproportionately involved in the killings. MINUSTAH and UNPOL did not object to this practice.
'Also, MINUSTAH and UNPOL share some of the blame because they failed to live up to their own Security Council mandate to protect civilians from imminent harm. Several times MINUSTAH, including UNPOL officers, watched as the HNP shot into peaceful demonstrations. MINUSTAH provided backup to deadly HNP operations.'
Concannon said that MINUSTAH has also carried out several massacres. The most recent occurred on July 6, 2005, when UN troops entered the poor Cite Soleil neighbourhood and indiscriminately sprayed houses with gunfire, killing and wounding many men, women and children.
Anthony Fenton, co-author of Waging War on the Poor Majority: Canada in Haiti, said that, 'by shifting blame onto `rogue elements' within the HNP, Muir attempts to deflect the mounting documentation of direct involvement or complicity of the UN military and police in countless atrocities. It is far easier to perpetuate racist stereotypes of Haitians as inherently violence prone than to be held accountable for helping to oversee a continuous campaign of repression which began with the arrival of foreign occupiers after the February 29, 2004 coup d'etat.'
Fenton noted that 'Muir neglects to mention that the HNP recruits, who are being trained and supplied with arms by the US, are not being vetted - as per the supposed UN mandate - for human rights abuses. Given Muir and the Canadian government's obvious desire to deny accountability for their actions, we have to ask ourselves who the real `rogue elements' are in Haiti.'
From People's Voice
