Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1995 - Haiti, 1 January 1995, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9fd50.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
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There was a marked upsurge in extrajudicial executions and "disappearances" during the first nine months of the year directed primarily against supporters of Haiti's exiled president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in an attempt to prevent his return. Hundreds of suspected Aristide supporters were detained without charge or trial; many were tortured. Reports of rape by the security forces and their civilian allies escalated. Some Haitian asylum-seekers attempting to reach the USA by sea who were forcibly returned by US forces were subjected to abuses after their return. President Aristide, who had been ousted by a military coup in September 1991, had originally been due to return to power in October 1993 under the auspices of the Governor's Island Agreement of July 1993 brokered by the UN and the Organization of American States (OAS). However, his projected return had been repeatedly delayed by increasing abuses against his supporters by military and paramilitary forces under the command of Commander-in-Chief of the Haitian Armed Forces, General Raoul Cédras, and Port-au-Prince Police Chief, Michel François, who became the country's effective rulers. Increasing violence was also cited by the UN as the reason for its withdrawal of the UN/OAS civilian human rights observer mission, MICIVIH, from October to December 1993 (see Amnesty International Reports1992 to 1994). Tens of thousands of Haitians fled the violence and the increasingly severe effects of a UN-sanctioned embargo, to live en marronage (in hiding), or to seek asylum abroad. Many were drowned as they tried to flee in unseaworthy craft; others were forcibly returned without even a cursory hearing of their asylum claim after interception at sea by US ships (see Amnesty International Reports1993 and 1994). Some asylum-seekers who had been intercepted at sea were subjected to abuses once returned to Haiti, including arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment and torture. Others managed to reach other countries in the region only to be held in sub-standard conditions or to find that their applications for asylum were not dealt with according to international standards for the consideration of asylum claims. In July the US Government altered its policy towards Haitian asylum-seekers, first agreeing to hear Haitian asylum claims on off-shore ships in the area or in neighbouring countries, then promoting a policy of "safe havens" for them throughout the region (see USA entry). These policy shifts provoked a renewed exodus of Haitians towards the USA. Also in July MICIVIH was expelled by the Haitian military authorities a second time. The US Government renewed its efforts to gain support for military intervention and by the end of July the UN Security Council had passed Resolution 940, authorizing a multinational force led by US troops to "facilitate the departure from Haiti of the military leadership the prompt return of the legitimately elected President [and a] secure and stable environment that will permit the implementation of the Governor's Island Agreement". The Haitian military's response to the UN Resolution was to impose a state of siege and a number of other measures to prevent information about the country's human rights situation, already severely curtailed by the expulsion of MICIVIH, from emerging. Outright confrontation with US-led forces was averted through a last-minute agreement between the US Government and the Haitian authorities, brokered by a US delegation led by former US president Jimmy Carter, under which the entry of US-led troops on 18 September was not actively opposed by the Haitian de facto authorities. The Haitian military also agreed to permit the return of President Aristide by 15 October, and to relinquish power by that date or after the Haitian parliament agreed an amnesty. By the end of October, the Haitian parliament had passed an amnesty (although the extent of its application was not clear), President Aristide had returned, and the principal leaders of the 1991 coup left the country to go into exile abroad. MICIVIH also returned to resume human rights monitoring in the country. There were hundreds of extrajudicial executions and "disappearances" during the year. Those responsible were the country's military and police and their paramilitary adjuncts, including the so-called attachés (civilian auxiliaries to the police and military), the chefs de sections (rural section chiefs who are members of the military), zenglendos (armed individuals generally believed to operate under the control of the military) and members of a political party formed in 1993 as the Front révolutionaire pour l'avancement et le progrès d'Haïti (FRAPH), Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, renamed in 1994 as the Front révolutionaire armé du peuple Haïtien, Haitian People's Revolutionary Armed Front. MICIVIH reported in March that there had been 75 apparent extrajudicial executions in the preceding six-week period alone and at least 62 "disappearances". For example, Oman Desanges' badly mutilated body was found near the international airport in Port-au-Prince in January, two days after he had been taken into custody by soldiers accompanied by attachés. A handkerchief tied to his body referred to his support for President Aristide. Oman Desanges had fled the country in 1992, after several attempts by soldiers to arrest him apparently because of his work as founder member of a neighbourhood committee which had supported President Aristide. He and his family were intercepted at sea by the US Coast Guard, but allowed to go to the USA to lodge an asylum claim. However, Oman Desanges and several of his family were returned to Haiti in 1992. About 50 people were apparently extrajudicially executed when the army attacked the village of Raboteau, Artibonite Department, in April. Raboteau had already been attacked on several occasions in the past by army and police seeking a local leader, Amio Métayer. Another notorious extrajudicial execution in 1994 was that of Father Jean Vincent, a close associate of President Aristide, who was shot dead in August by unidentified men in Port-au-Prince, apparently as a warning to those contributing to the growing pressure to return President Aristide to Haiti. One of the scores of people who "disappeared" was Emile Georges, a member of the human rights commission of a popular organization in Cité Soleil. He "disappeared" during a wave of abuses carried out in July, immediately following the expulsion of MICIVIH. Residents of Cité Soleil, a poor district of Port-au-Prince, were repeatedly abused by the military because they were believed to support President Aristide. In the months leading up to President Aristide's return in October, hundreds of his suspected supporters were held without charge for longer than permitted under Haitian law, and tortured while held in severely sub-standard prison conditions. Among them were nine returned asylum-seekers arrested as they disembarked at Port-au-Prince after being repatriated by the US Coast Guard in February. Neither US nor UN officials were allowed access to them while in detention. All were later released. Torture by the security forces was widespread. Seventeen-year-old "Chatte", a brother of Amio Métayer (see above), was severely tortured during almost 10 months' detention without charge. He received no medical care for the serious wounds he sustained under torture. He was released in September. An increasing incidence of the use of rape as a weapon of political terror was also recorded. MICIVIH statistics showed that at least 66 women, including 10 girls and one woman who was six months pregnant, had been raped by the security forces and their supporters between the end of January and May 1994. In just one raid carried out by the army on shanty-town areas of Port-au-Prince in March, some 40 women were reportedly raped, including an eight-year-old girl and a 55-year-old woman. Mathilde, whose husband, a supporter of President Aristide, had been killed, was raped by four uniformed men who burst into her home. As a result, she lost the baby she was carrying. In response to the escalating human rights crisis in Haiti, Amnesty International appealed to the authorities on behalf of numerous individuals. It also urged national and international bodies, including the UN Special Rapporteur on Haiti and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, to take steps to resolve the human rights crisis in Haiti. In August Amnesty International published a report, Haiti: On the Horns of a Dilemma: Military Repression or Foreign Invasion, which summarized the organization's human rights concerns in the country, pointed to a number of past violations in Haiti that required urgent investigation, and expressed fears that human rights might be further abused in the context of an invasion. The organization also called on the US authorities, other members of the UN Security Council and the UN "Friends of Haiti" (countries that had played a special role in seeking a resolution to the long-term human rights crisis in Haiti) to ensure respect for human rights and basic principles of humanitarian law in the course of any military intervention in Haiti. In August and September an Amnesty International delegation visited the Bahamas, French Guiana, the USA and the Dominican Republic to investigate the situation of Haitian asylum-seekers in the region. At the end of September, a further delegation visited Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to research the situation of Haitian and Cuban asylum-seekers taken there after their interception at sea. Amnesty International concluded that Haitians there were being encouraged to repatriate on the basis of inadequate information on the rapidly changing situation in their home country. It called on the US authorities to ensure that no Haitians were returned to Haiti without their informed consent. Amnesty International regretted that UN Resolution 940 had contained no provisions for a human rights plan for Haiti and called on the international community to make a long-term commitment to building institutions to protect human rights in Haiti. Amnesty International also asked that independent human rights observers be allowed to observe any foreign military intervention and its aftermath, and that there be no impunity for human rights violators, no matter where they might flee. Amnesty International called for all paramilitary groups to be disbanded and urged the intervening foreign troops not to remain silent witnesses of any abuses by Haitian law enforcement personnel. Following the shooting by US forces of up to 10 Haitian police and paramilitaries at Cap Haïtien on 24 September, Amnesty International asked for a full independent inquiry to determine whether international standards on the use of lethal force had been violated. The organization also called on the commanders of the foreign military forces operating in the country to ensure that international human rights standards were respected by forces under their command, including the treatment of prisoners, and that steps be taken to ensure the safety of prisoners still held who had been detained by the previous de facto authorities.
