Tribunal charges occupiers with crimes

Detailed work connecting officers of the U.S. Marines, Haitian National Police and United Nations forces in Haiti to a “systematic and widespread violation of human rights, massacres and killings, amounting to crimes against humanity” has taken a big step forward in Boston.

On Nov. 19, at the second session of the International Tribunal on Haiti, the Commission of Inquiry that went to Haiti in the first week of October presented some of the evidence it had gathered from over 50 witnesses. The meeting was held at Suffolk Law School.

The evidence was powerful and gripping. Most of the audience, which filled up the moot court room and a section of the overflow room, stayed for the session’s full five hours. Besides the Haitian community in Boston, delegations attended from the Latin@, Cape Verdean and other oppres sed communities in Boston. The Haiti Support Network and Konbit Aysien-Kakola organized a bus from Brooklyn. Haitians and other progressives came from throughout New England and from as far as Montreal and Quebec.

Organizers said some members of the Haitian community in Boston who feared for their families back in Haiti did not attend.

Ramsey Clark, former U.S. attorney gen eral and a member of the Commission that went to Haiti, offered a review of Hai tian history. He concluded that “Haiti needs what it has long deserved but not had for many years—peace and security for all.”

Highlighting the crimes against human ity that have occurred in Haiti since the most recent “regime change” there on Feb. 29, 2004, Clark repeated what he had earlier said at a news conference in Port-au-Prince: “It is absolutely imperative for the future of Haiti and to peace on earth that there be accountability for these crimes. If international forces under the auspices of the United Nations can come to Haiti and engage in systematic summary executions of its people, what place on earth will be safe from that power?”

Thomas Engler, another member of the commission, presented testimony to prove that the human-rights violations systematically carried out in Haiti were designed to stifle dissent and punish those who protest.

Dave Welsh, a delegate to the San Francisco Central Labor Council and organizer of a labor and human-rights delegation that went to Haiti in June and July, presented information on other legal challenges to the actions of U.S. and Brazilian forces in Haiti.

Tom Griffin, a lawyer from Philadelphia who has done extensive human-rights investigations throughout Latin America, was also a member of the Commission. He presented evidence of U.S. and UN complicity in the massacre carried out at an Aug. 20 soccer game.

The U.S. Agency for International Development paid some well-known Haitian soccer players to put on a “peace” match. Some 2,000 to 3,000 people gathered to watch. After intermission but before play had restarted police burst onto the field and ordered the players to lie down. Some did but others said they preferred to die on their feet. The cops began shooting, both at the players and the spectators, who all started running. As they were escaping, they were attacked by civilian “attachés”—people employed by official cops to do dirty work, like chopping up people and breaking up homes.

Griffin said Mario Andersol, the head of the police, made no attempt before the massacre to stop it from happening nor did he do anything to bring the perpetrators to justice.

John Parker, who is the West Coast coordinator of the International Action Center and who also went to Haiti in early October, presented evidence on the connection between U.S. Marine Gen. Ronald Coleman and the crimes against humanity committed by the PNH before the MINUSTAH, the UN’s name for its troops, arrived.

The next tribunal most likely will be held in Miami, with Montreal or Brooklyn following.