DOG DAYS

ALL DAYS ARE DOG DAYS IN HAITI, Not for the Heat, but For All the Dogs. Dogs have openly fed on the fallen bodies of ARISTIDE supporters since the illegal United States enforced coup removed the former priest and last freely elected president from office on the Caribbean island. Other dogs still hungry for power gnaw on the bones of democracy.  Oppression’s odor wafts in and out of windows. Dogs rip flesh and retreat to feast out of sight. Or they do it in the open.

When shameful injustice is not even hidden, when brutality takes the color and cloak of authority, then one sees a government gone to the dogs. The dogs now come for Father Gerard JEAN-JUSTE.  In a twisted turning of the screw, Jean-Juste sought to attend and minister at the funeral of a family relation, Jacques Roche, a kidnapped and killed journalist with possible ties to GROUP 184.  At the funeral for Roche, he was assaulted, his attackers were left alone, and he was arrested and later charged in the murder of Roche.


RECOMMENDED READING

[NARCONEWS] As reported in a Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN) e-mail alert last night, and confirmed by the GUARDIAN today police sent popular priest Gerard Jean-Juste to the Central Prison and told him he would be charged in connection with the death of Jacques Roche.  For both HLLN and the newspaper the primary source was Bill Quigley, a U.S. citizen representing the priest now as a defense attorney.

Quigley, in a later e-mail message passed on by Marguerite Laurent of the HLLN and posted at VOICES IN THE WILDERNESS, described the questioning of Jean-Juste as follows:

He had a quick hearing with a justice of the peace, who refused to wait until Mario Joseph, his Haitian lawyer could be present.  No written charges were shared - again questions were like, what party do you belong to?  can you explain your presence at the funeral of Jacques Roche?  Do you know why the bandits killed him?  Do you visit the poor neighborhood of Bel-Air frequently?

Roche, a social and culture editor at a major newspaper who also had a television show, was kidnapped and held for $250,000 ransom.  HLLN alleges that family members and work colleagues were only able to raise about $10,000, and Roche's family had expected members of the wealthy, coup-supporting Group 184 to contribute to the ransom because Roche worked for them.  Instead, Roche's captors murdered him, and dumped his body on the streets of Port-au-Prince on July 14, when the ransom was not paid.  At the time, Jean-Juste was still in the United States.  He had helped lead, on July 13, a protest at the Brazilian consulate in Miami against the JULY 6 CITE SOLEIL KILLINGS by United Nations forces in Haiti, which are led by Brazil.

Despite the jailing of Jean-Juste, the Guardian reported that "chief government prosecutor Audain Daniel said a decision had not yet been made on whether to charge Jean-Juste, an outspoken critic of Haiti's interim government."

This is the fourth time agents of the coup government jailed the priest, most recently after he was attacked at Roche's funeral, in the presence of police, by anti-Aristide attendees who accused him of participating in the murder.

[REUTERS] "I was not even in Haiti when Jacques was kidnapped and killed. I was in the U.S. I am 100 percent innocent," Jean-Juste said from his jail cell.

Jean-Juste, a Roman Catholic priest and a leading figure in Aristide's Lavalas Family party who was imprisoned for seven weeks last year, was jailed on Thursday after he tried to take part in Roche's funeral. At the service, a government minister blamed Aristide supporters for the killing. "I have a cousin that married one of his (Roche's) relatives," Jean-Juste said from his jail cell. "I wanted to pay tribute to him because I was so touched by his assassination."



[BILL QUIGLEY/ VITW] A man in a suit, who identified himself as head of security for the funeral, rushed back in from the church area - only a few feet away and in plain view -and told Fr. Gerry these people were going to kill him there in the sacristy unless he fled. Fr. Jean-Juste knelt to pray and the woman and I knelt with him in the middle of the growing crowd.

At that point people started slapping Fr. Jean-Juste on the head and face and spitting on him and the other two of us. Something then hit Fr. Jean-Juste in the head. Someone punched him in the eye. We stood up and a few UN CIVPOL officers showed up to help us leave the sacristy of the church. As we tried to get to the stairs people continued pushing and screaming and shouting threats. They continued to call out “assassin,” “criminal,” and “kill the rat.” The crowd now overwhelmed the police. More people spit on us and hit Fr. Gerry, even in the face, while others were grabbing his church vestments trying to drag him off the church steps.

[BBC]Scuffles broke out at the ceremony after mourners spotted Gerard Jean-Juste, a priest close to former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ousted last year.
The priest was punched by the crowd, following claims by some officials that Aristide supporters were involved in Roche's murder.
Mr Jean-Juste was escorted to a nearby police station for protection.

PREVIOUS HERETIK POST:[PUTTING OUT THE FIRE][ISLAND OF GHOSTS] 

RECOMMENDED ADDITIONAL READING
[MIAMI LAW HUMAN RIGHTS INVESTIGATION]
INTERNATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD [HAITI REPORT ONE] [HAITI REPORT TWO]
[HAITI PROFILE: BBC] [CARIBBEAN GAZA]

MORE TO FOLLOW

YOU CAN HELP END THE HAITIAN NIGHTMARE
CONTACT YOUR  MEMBERS OF CONGRESS
AND THE U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, James B. Foley
United States Embassy
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephones: 011-509-223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354
Fax: 011-509-223-1641 or 9038
Email to Dana Banks, Human Rights Officer:
[email protected]

Comments

[michelle]

are you sure that's a person?
that's some fucked up shit!

thought I'd stop by and say hi to my pally... :)

[The Heretik]

That was a person, M. There are some incredibly grim realities going on in Haiti and many of them are reflected quite graphically in the Miami Report.

[jen]

oh jayzus H, thank you (?) for this. That happened in Fallujah dogs eating corpses during the siege I believe. Soldiers were shooting all the dogs.

[Aaron]

According to the BBC, the family of Roche did pay $10,000 to the kidnappers, but then they demanded the rest of the money. In all likelihood his kidnapping and murder was not economically motivated as most kidnappings are in Haiti, it was a political statement. There's no faction in Haiti that is not guilty of killing for political purposes.

Nothing is cut and dry in Haiti, Aristide like every other leader before him was faced with a country whose economic base is all but nonexistent. It's hard to run a country when you have no jobs or any prospects for creating jobs for large segments of the population.

[Aaron]

During the 17th , 18th and 19th centuries the island of Hispaniola (Haiti and Dominican Republic) was the most profitable of all of Europe's Caribbean holdings, creating more wealth through sugar production than all of the other Caribbean islands combined.

It's interesting to note, in light of the reparations movement here in United States, that the origin of the fortunes of many of Europe's most prominent wealthy families can be traced back in an unbroken line directly to this island. A shining example of early capitalism that was held up as a model of efficient production at universities throughout France and Spain all through the 18th and 19th-century.

Not until Karl Marx was anyone able to truly encapsulate this approach to turning human beings into eminently replaceable parts of a capitalist machine, parts whose sole purpose was the production of wealth for individual gain.

By the time of the revolution in Haiti in 1791, it was estimated that between three and five million slaves had been imported onto the island beginning around 1540. That same year the island's population was only around 556,000, 500,000 of which were black slaves. The mortality rate for abducted Africans forced into the rigors of chattel slavery was around 50 percent in the first three to eight years. The French observer Hilliard d'Auberteuil estimated that, during a roughly 100 year period beginning in 1680 over 800,000 slaves were imported into the port of Saint Domingue alone, but in 1776 the slave population was only 290,000. Not until World War II and the Holocaust did our planet see people being worked to death on this scale.

Few people know that Haitian soldiers fought alongside Minutemen in the U.S. war of independence. Three battle hardened companies fresh from defeating napoleons invading troops in Haiti, came to reinforce Washington along the Potomac. Former Marechaussee (a kind of police force that hunted down runaway slaves) and Maroons (escaped slaves who became rebels and resistance fighters), they were Guerrilla fighters whose tactics some believe the early Americans emulated in order to defeat the superior British forces.

The more recent contributions Haitians make to the United States are as easily overlooked. Almost anywhere you go in South Florida, there they are, the new "Invisible Man" and woman, working the kitchen of that restaurant, driving that cab, guarding that building, caring for the elderly, cleaning up someone else's mess. Usually Doing those jobs that no one wants to do, jobs that disfranchised African-Americans long ago learned lead nowhere. Illegal Haitians often worked construction and other jobs for minimum wage or less.

Before 911 George W. Bush wanted to grant citizenship to the more than one million illegal immigrants, Haitians were specifically excluded from this proposal that was termed immunity.

[The Heretik]

Thanks for the info, Aaron. This story really is like an onion and that is just in thinking about the last few years. The Caribbean is in many ways the American foreign policy story, one most people don't even think of. Whether it is a leftover mindset of the Monroe Doctrine or the Roosevelt Corollary, it seems our president's act like the region is ours to do with as we will.

[margarette rateau]

The situation in Haiti must be seen thru the lens of class prejudice and that is cut and dry.

A lot had been said in the establishment press about Jacques Roche and very little about thousands of the poor that have been killed since the Bush coup d'etat in 2004. The difference is Jacques Roche had money by Haitian Standard and the others are dirt poor and illiterate. The AP, BBC, AFP, REuTERS of the world relied on the Haitian press to get information on Haiti and the Haitian press just like the major media outlet in the US and elsewhere is owned by the business elite.

While we will never know for sure who killed Jacques Roche, I found it rather suspicious that the de-facto government is not interested in carrying out some serious independent investigations into the murder but instead choose to arrest one of his political opponent, Fr Jean-Juste, in connection with the murder.

The establishment press has been largely silent about the thousands of people who have been killed in slums throughout Haiti and the de-facto haitian gov't has held no one accountable for these crimes.

Here is a partial list of people that were killed throughout Haiti's slums in April 2005:

According to President Mr. Evel Fanfan AUMOHD (Association of University Graduates Motivated for a Haiti with Rights) prisoners are not finding enough to eat and the following people were killed by MINUSTAH this April 2005:

1. Fedia Raphael, age 15. She was shot by the Peruvian MINUSTAH soldiers, April 9, 2005
2. Jean Brenel Jean, age 28, killed by several bullets to the head by Peruvian MINUSTAH soldiers, April 15, 2005
3. Paul Jean emile, killed at Bois Neuf in Cité Soleil by MINUSTAH soldiers.
4. Andre Joassaint, killed April1, 2005 by MINUSTAH soldiers
5. "Bord", so called, a former soccer player, killed outside the police station at Cité Soleil
6. Denis Gary, killed by MINUSTAH soldiers with a bullet to the head, Cité Soleil
7. Daniel Jimmo, killed by MINUSTAH soldiers, April 19th, at Drouillard
8. Marie MAude Fabien, age 28, shot by MINUSTAH soldiers April 23, 2005. She is still in the morgue because her parents haven’t the means to bury her.

At least nine persons have been confirmed dead and several others wounded after police shot at demonstrators near UN headquarters in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday April 27.
Different sources, of whom a cameraman from a local TV stations and a radio journalist, have corroborated the above information said a Reuter’s news article. The following persons have been reported killed. Some were killed during the demonstration while others died later as a result of their wounds:

- Reginald Colon (32), from Rue Saint Martin, Bel Air. He was a father of 4 children. According to his relatives, he was shot in the back, shoulder and foot. He was found at the morgue wearing only his trousers while his personal possessions including a necklace, ring, money and shoes were missing;
- Stevenson St Cloud (21) from Rue Dr Aubry, Bel Air. He was a friend of Reginald and was with him at the demonstration. His body had similarly been robbed of his personal possessions;
- James Lahens from Rue Tiremasse, Bel Air;
- Delange Mesnel. His parents have reported that his body was found at Delmas 24;
- Roland Gustave from Carrefour;
- Nelson Auguste from Carrefour;
- Mackenzie André from La Saline;
- Ti Jé (alias) from Fort National; and
- Claudine Joseph from Mòn Felix, Bel Air.
At least five other persons were wounded by gunshots as a result of the attack by the police. Information provided by Independent Lawyer Judy Dacruz on the ground in Haiti.

Here is where I got this info:

http://www.fondasyonmapou.org/

While I am deeply saddened by the death of Jacques Roche, I wonder why has he gotten so much press coverage while the establishment press in Haiti and Western Hemisphere remain silent about the murder of thousands of poor and dispossessed in Haiti.

[Aaron]

One reason I believe we don't get to see what's really happening in Haiti is because the international press has almost no presence there. Apparently most news organizations don't view what happens in the country as anything of real interest to the world population. And let's face it, here in America most people could care less about what happens to Haitians (just more dark skinned people that don't speak English). We're about as removed from Haiti as we are from the Sudan or Rwanda.

Most news organizations these days view Haiti through a long lens. And you can hardly blame them for not sending journalists to the country because it's not a safe place for enterprising journalists. Asking questions or taking pictures in the wrong place at the wrong time can get you shot or decapitated. People disappear by the hundreds in Haiti and nobody says anything. But one blonde white American girl disappears in Aruba and it's on the news every night for weeks and weeks. I guess dead Black girls just don't sell as well.

Don't let anybody tell you that this has nothing to do with skin color or culture. Here in South Florida many people view Haitians as hardly human. They're just not the kind of people that we can really empathize with or feel sympathy for, at least beyond the passing thought. And such attitudes cut across racial lines. It's a sad commentary on our society.

Thanks again Joe for taking the time to look into this. Of all the people who run blogs that I've e-mailed information to, you're the only one who's posted anything about Haiti. You're a good man Charlie Brown.

[margarette rateau]

Ever wonder why Haiti's economic base is non-existant?

READ ON....

After the slave revolution that ended in 1804, Haitians found themselves in a world entirely hostile to the idea of self-governing blacks. The US and allied Europeans powers helped France orchestrate a diplomatic quarantine of Haiti making it the outcast of the international community.

Deseperately looking for trade partners, Haiti's status as a pariah rebuplic made it the source of advantageous trade deals, particularly for the British. As late as 1824, the French Monarch Charles X pressed Haiti for 150 million francs and the halving of customs charges for the French trade--all as indemnity for the losses of the plantation owners. These conditions, accepted in 1825, led to decades of French domination of Haiti's finance and put a strain on the new nation's delicate economy. Between 1870 an 1913, the United States and Germany controlled a significant portion of Haiti's commerce. Commercial primacy was not established merely thru negotiating profitable trade agreements, Warships were often called in by foreign merchants who claimed that debts owed to them by Haitians were unpaid. These warships threatened to obliterate the city if these so called debts were not honored by the Haitian gov't. In March 1849, it was the French admiral Duquesne; in July 1861, the Spanish admiral Rubalcava; in 1872 the German captain Batsch; in April 1891, the American admiral Gherardi; in December 1902, the German captain Thiele. In 1914, an American war ship, the Mathias landed a marine regiment in Port-au-Prince. They marched to the national bank, broke it open, took the republic's gold reserve and left. This gold, estimated at half a million dollars has never been returned. Still, Haiti was forced to accept a loan of forty million dollars to pay her debts.

In 1883, Louis Joseph Janvier, a Haitian stateman, estimated that a total of 80 million francs had been drained from the national coffers to pay these so-called debts to the foreign merchants while the french "debt" had sucked up 120 million francs. Between 1879 and 1902 one conservative is that $2,500,000 were extorted from federal reserves in order to stave off gunboats. By the end of the 19th century, 80 percent of national revenue--mostly derived from peasant labor--went directly to repay debts. Before long, Haiti was unable to make payments. Thus Haiti was the first country in the developing world to fall victim to unfair trade practices with the West and the first country to get trap on this ever ending cycle of "debts" to the West.

During the 1st American Occupation of Haiti(July 28th 1915 thru August 15th 1934) Washington assumed complete control of Haiti's finance.

The control of Haiti's economy by the West continued throughout the 20th century and the 21st century via neo-liberal policies that compounded the misery of the majority of Haitians. For the latest on what the colonial cabal have on store for Haiti's economy check this link:

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=8394

[margarette rateau]

Last not least, the Haitian elite share the blame for the economic, political and ecological crisis that Haiti finds itself in:

Desesperate to make money for themselves, they cave in to every demands place on the nascent republic by the emerging imperialist powers and they continue to do so to these days. They also uses the country as their own private property. Its coffers, its customs and its source of cheap labor are their source of revenue.

Attempts by Haiti's poor majority to change the power equation in their favor have been swiftly and radically stifled. Haitian elites and foreign powers see the rise of Haiti's poor majority to political and economic power as a threat to their economic and political dominance of Haiti over the last 200 years. Moreover, the US sees the emergence of Lavalas as a threat to their economic dominance in the carribean and latin america. The current situation in Haiti is an effort by the Haitian elite and the foreign powers to counteract the Lavalas threat and keep Haitians contained in the never ending cycle of poverty and foreign debt.

[russian women]

Thank you, this article was a blessing! I’ll have to read over that verse again in light of what I just learned here .