Political Repression by UN troops     June 14 2004

News HaitiAction.net

Political repression of Lavalas leaders continues in northern Haiti

French soldiers and U.N. Troops invade the home
of Mayor of Milo, Jean Charles Moise.

Read article in San Francisco Bayview June 16

"Through These Trees, I See Haiti's Murderous Army Reborn"

Emergency Action Alert

French soldiers and U.N. Troops invade the home Mayor of Milo, Jean Charles Moise.

Early reports indicate that on June 14, 2004, at around 4:00 am in the morning, a contingent of French soldiers along with some U.N. (blue helmet) soldiers invaded the home of the duly elected Mayor of Milo, Jean Charles Moise. According to sources close to Mayor Jean Charles Moise, on finding that he was not home, the soldiers arrested his wife and took her into custody, and possibly some other adults in his house, leaving his small underage children without a mother.

Mayor Moise's wife was eventually released. No one has yet reported the reason for her detention by the foreign soldiers, however, or what happened during her arrest, why she was arrested or exactly when she was released.

The house was ransacked and damaged by the soldiers. Under Haitian law, even with a warrant and judge (Juj de pe) present, no arrest may be made between the hours of 6:pm and 6 am in Haiti. To date, foreign troops in Haiti have absolutely refused to respect or be bound to Haitian law, Constitution or sovereignty. The U.S. soldiers and now French and U.N. soldiers seem to be establishing a record instead of terrorizing suspects in the dead-of-night and treating Haitians,
even 5-year old Haitian children, as in the So Ann's home invasion, like criminals, especially if they
are affiliated with the Lavalas party in Haiti which still remains Haiti's strongest and most popular democratic party and movement. What is most disturbing about this pattern is the single-minded focus on arresting primarily Lavalas voices with a well-known popular support base and credible reputations. This pattern is continuing even under the new U.N.-led troops with this current hunt for the Mayor of Milo. Said Mayor, Jean Charles Moise, has been a frequent voice in the U.S. media denouncing the human right abuses taking place in Haiti since the U.S. and France forced President Aristide and the Constitutionally elected government out of office.

Please contact Kofi Annan at the UN, the French Mission at the UN, contact Ambassador James Foley directly at the US Embassy in Port-au-Prince, call on Secretary of State Colin Powell at the US State Department in Washington, call the State Department (Haiti desk) and contact your Senators and Representatives. Call early and call often.

Raise your voices to protest this illegal arrest of the Mayor's wife at 4:00 am in contravention of Haitian law. Protest the pattern of dead-of-night home invations, practiced solely against Lavalas officials while Guy Phillipe, Jean Tatoune and other known drug dealers, and convicted murderes run free in Haiti. Denounce the un-reported mass killings of Haitian civilians since the Coup D'etat, the reprisals, continued illegal arrests of popular leaders in the Lavalas party and this current hunt for the Mayor of Milo, Jean Charles Moise by foreign troops.

Haiti has had a long history of brutal political repression conducted by US supported dictators and their paramilitaries in the dead of night. That is why the law against such dead-of-night arrests was adopted by sincere and conscious Haitian legislators who wished to stop this pattern of injustice - such terrorizing, arbitrary and warrantless political arrests. If the French soldiers and UN troops had a legitimate warrant to exercise, they should have exercised it at the appropriate hour and in accordance with the laws of the land and in accordance with their UN mission as peacekeepers.

Call, fax and write Secretary-General Kofi Annan, ask whether UN soldiers are now taking the place of the former bloody Haitian military and FRAPH paramilitiries, who never abided by any Haitian law whatsoever. Demand a stop to these sorts of home invations in Haiti by foreign troops there as "peacekeepers." Demand the release of the Mayor's wife, due compensation for the ransacked and destroyed home and a stop to this seeming systematic witch hunts for only Lavalas officials in Haiti and abroad.

Marguerite Laurent
Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

Pierre Labossiere
Haiti Action Committee


Protest this illegal and immoral action by the United States Marines! Demand Sò Anne's immediate release! Your calls, faxes and e-mails will make a difference to keep Sò Anne alive, to deter brutal treatment and to expedite her release.

Please contact Ambassador James Foley directly at the U.S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince. Call on Secretary of State Colin Powell at the U.S. State Department in Washington, and contact your Senators and Representatives. Call early and call often.

CONTACT INFORMATION

Ambassador James B. Foley U.S. Embassy, Port-au-Prince, Haiti phone: 509.223.7011 or 509.222.0200 fax: 509.223.9665 email: acspap@state.gov

U.S. Emabassy in Port-au-Prince (for address and additional phones)

Colin Powell, U.S. Secretary of State fax: 202.647.2283 or 202.647.5169 phone: 202.647.5291 or 202.647.7098 email via: http://contact-us.state.gov/ask_form_cat/ask_form_secretary.html

Haiti Desk Officers, U.S. State Department:

Joseph Tilghman fax: 202.647.2901 phone: 202.647.5088 email: tilghmanjf@state.gov

Lawrence Connell fax: 202.647.2901 phone: 202.647.6765 email: ConnellLF@state.gov

ZAP your representative

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Key Media Contacts

Consider sending this story or writing an Op Ed or Letter to Editor
about this story to the following media:

  • Los Angeles Times - Los Angeles,CA
  • Chicago Tribune - Chicago,IL
  • USA Today - McLean,VA
  • New York Times - New York,NY
  • Washington Post - Washington,DC
  • Wall Street Journal - New York,NY
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  • CBS News - New York,NY
  • CNN News Group - Atlanta,GA
  • Fox News Channel - New York,NY
  • MSNBC - Secaucus,NJ
  • NBC News - New York,NY
  • Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) - Alexandria,VA

Washington Post

  • Foreign Desk: (202) 334-7400
  • Reporters who write on Haiti: Kevin Sullivan and Scott Wilson
  • Letters to the Editor - letters@washpost.com
  • The Washington Post
    1150 15th Street Northwest
    Washington, DC 20071

San Francisco Chronicle: letters@sfchronicle.com

  • Letters editor: (415) 777-7176 or (415) 543-7708 (fax)

Reuters: www.reuters.com click on "contact us"

  • American's Desk: (202) 898-8300 or (202) 898-8300

New York Times: Web online letter or eMail letters@nytimes.com

  • Foreign Desk: (212) 556-7415
  • Reporters who write on Haiti: LYDIA POLGREEN and TIM WEINER

Associated Press: pr@ap.org

  • International Desk: (212) 621-1663
  • Michelle Faul - mfaul@ap.org

Miami Herald

South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Washington Times

  • Foreign Desk: (202) 636-3222
  • Reporter who writes on Haiti: Sibylla Brodzinsky

LA Times

  • Foreign Desk: (213) 237-4413
  • Reporter who writes on Haiti: Carol J. Williams
  • Letters@latimes.org

Boston Globe

  • Letters to the Editor - letter@globe.com
  • The Boston Globe
    P.O. Box 2378
    Boston, MA 02107-2378
  • Fax to (617) 929-2098

ABC

  • Foreign Desk: (212) 456-2800

NBC

  • Foreign Desk: (201) 583-5777

CBS

  • Foreign Desk: (212) 975-3019

CNN

  • International Desk: (404) 827-1519
  • State Department Correspondent: Andrea Koppel (202)898-7515

NPR - National Public Radio

  • Foreign Desk: (202) 513-2299
  • Comment Line: 202 513-3232 weekdays 10:00am-5:00pm
    (sometimes they play these on the air).
  • Morning Edition: Morning@npr.org
  • All Things Considered: atc@npr.org
  • send copies of all comments on reporting to ombudsman@npr.org

Key Congressional and Government Phone Numbers

  • Congressional Switchboard - 800-839-5276 or 202-224-3121
  • Nancy Pelosi - (SF) 415-556-4862; (DC) 202-225-4965
  • Dianne Feinstein - (SF) 415-249-4777; (DC) 202-224-3841
  • Barbara Boxer - (SF) 415-403-0100; (DC) 202-224-3553
  • White House Comment line - 202-456-1111
  • US State Department - 202-647-5291 or 202-647-7098(phone)
  • 202-647-2283 or 202-647-5169 (fax)

Background information of the Mayor of Milo:

Through These Trees,
I See Haiti's Murderous Army Reborn

First Person, Jean Charles Moise,
Pacific News Service, Mar 12, 2004

Flashpoints Radio Broadcast

Editor's Note: A mayor from northern Haiti currently in hiding says that the Haitian army is back in force, shooting people and burning homes. How could this happen, he asks -- and where are they getting the all the heavy weaponry?


CAP HAITIAN, Haiti--I am the mayor of Milo, a district of about 50,000 people near Cap Haitian. When I was elected nine years ago, at the age of 28, I was the youngest to serve in that office in Haiti's modern history. I've traveled in the United States on speaking tours, telling Americans about how we were building democracy in Haiti under the Aristide government. In late February my district came under attack by anti-Aristide forces and I fled for my life. From where I am now -- hiding in the woods -- I see the old Haitian army is back.

Those they don't kill, they lock up in containers, because they burned down the jails. The kind of containers you put on ships.

The situation is different here from what I hear about in Port-au-Prince, where you have the multinational force of American, Canadian, Chilean soldiers. In Cap Haitian you have the former Haitian military. There are no police any more, so they are the ones who are law. They come into your home. They take you, they beat you up, they kill you. They burn down homes. They do anything they want, because they are the only law in town.

The journalists are in Port-au-Prince, but here in the north no one is reporting what's going on, that the former Haitian military is killing people. They are killing about 50 people a day in Cap Haitian. It's happening not just in the northern department but also in the central plateau, in the Artibone region.

Can you imagine that on Monday at 2 p.m. the former military declared a curfew that would start at 4 p.m.? The peasants, many of them are poor and do not have a radio, so how could they hear of this curfew? So what happened at 4 p.m.? The former military took to the streets and anyone they saw on the streets they shot. This is the kind of stuff that is going on. Can you imagine this?

We have people like myself, mayors and other members of the municipal government who have had to flee and are now sleeping in the woods, and have gone to the mountains. We have church members and priests who have been beaten and whose cars have been destroyed. These people are also in hiding. We could never have imagined that we would be going back to this situation that existed before. It is intolerable.

Since this whole thing started I haven't seen my wife and my children. I have been in hiding. This cannot continue. This is a catastrophe for the north of Haiti and all the people of Haiti.

One has to ask, why is all of this happening? Is this because we used to have only 10 public high schools but now we have over 150? Is it because we made a democracy where people could go in the streets, protest, and be free to say whatever they want? Is it because black people in the country now, people who were poor and always kept out of the political life of the country, they have come out and have been participating in democracy? Is that why they have unleashed this terror on us? Is that what we are paying for?

We ask these questions: Is it because the United States blocked international assistance to Haiti to make people rise up against the president, but they never did? Is it because people here are continuing to support their president? Is that why we are getting all this repression? We have to ask those questions.

We wonder whether it is because the army that used to exist before was disbanded by President Aristide. Instead of defending the people, that army used to carry out a war against us. Is it because that army is no longer there that someone has rearmed it and brought it back to Haiti with very powerful weapons?

Now the old army is doing what they used to do before, except with more powerful weapons and with helicopters. They are drowning people in the sea. That's what going on.

The press is reporting the looting that is taking place in Port au Prince but they are not reporting about the police stations that were burned and destroyed here in the north. They are not reporting on the number of schools that have been destroyed. They are not reporting on the burning of the airport in Cap Haitian and all the other things that were built under the government of President Aristide for the Haitian people.

I cannot understand how a group of disbanded military has access to such sophisticated equipment and heavy weaponry. They have two helicopters and they have two airplanes. They use the helicopter to transport their troops and they use them at night with spotlights to look for people in hiding. They are in the air and they have their troops on the ground.

These are the questions we ask ourselves as we hide from those with the guns.

Mayor Jean Charles Moise spoke with PNS contributors Lyn Duff and Dennis Bernstein via cell phone. The interview originally aired on Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints show (KPFA FM 94.1 in Berkeley, Calif.). Duff is a freelance writer who has reported widely on Haiti since 1995. Bernstein is the executive producer of Flashpoints.

Flashpoints, Your Investigative News Magazine