By The Haiti Action Committee, Oct. 30, 2014
On Thursday, October 10th illegally appointed Judge Lamarre Belizaire pressed forward with his arrest order against President Aristide. President Aristide's residence is located within the jurisdiction of Croix-des-Bouquets near Port-au-Prince. The next day the D.A. or Commissaire of that jurisdiction questioned the legality of the warrant, as he was being pressured to carry out the arrest that day. He requested the entire legal package for his review, and was summarily dismissed from his job by the government of illegally selected President Martelly and Prime Minister Lamothe.
He was replaced with a new D.A., Souvenir Jeanty, a former member of the disbanded Haitian military with a reputation for brutality. Jeanty has pledged to carry out Judge Belizaire's order to arrest President Aristide, despite the call for Belizaire’s legal recusal by Aristide's lawyers. The Minister of Justice, Jean Renel Sanon, is also a former officer of the disbanded military who according to some reports was dismissed in the late 1980's for alleged involvement in drug trafficking.
On October 16, three members of the CSPJ (the governing council overseeing the Haitian justice system) and the president of ANAMAH (the National Association of Haitian judges) publicly denounced the subjugation of the judicial system by the Martelly/Lamothe government, pointing to the political persecution of Martelly’s opponents and the illegal firing and appointing of judges.
Attacks continue on President Aristide and the grassroots multitudes who support him. Haiti Action Committee condemns the brutal assassination of activists and community organizers Paul Ambroise aka Ti Koton and Michael Benoit on October 8 as they were leaving a soccer match. Ambroise, an outspoken supporter of former President Aristide and aspiring mayoral candidate was killed along with Benoit in cold-blooded fashion by agents of the Martelly/Lamothe appointed mayor of Port-au-Prince, Pierre Rigaud Duplan, who was on the scene and pointed out the two. No arrest was made by the police.
Haiti Action Committee also condemns the brutal arrest of the Mascary couple from the southern island of Ile-a-Vache on Friday 10/24/14. The 89-year old wife and 82-year old husband were protesting the theft of their land and the bulldozing of their farm and livelihood as part of an island-wide land-grab for wealthy investors, who want to expropriate the residents’ land and build exclusive resorts. The operations were conducted under the orders of another Martelly-appointed mayor, Fritz Cesar. Marc Donald (Jinal) Laines the President of KOPI, the peasant organization protesting land-grabs on the island, died last Saturday 10/25/14 of injuries sustained during a very suspicious "accident" the day before.
In other examples of the growing repression in the country, Haitian police attacked legal and peaceful demonstrations on September 30th, October 17th and October 26th. The September 30th demonstrations marked the 1991 coup by the Haitian military and those of October 17 commemorated the assassination of Emperor Jean-Jacques Dessalines and the first coup in Haiti in 1806. On October 26th, “failed election day,” people throughout Haiti were in the streets to demand that free and fair elections be held, which the Martelly/Lamothe government, acting as agents of the US/UN occupation, have once again denied the nation. In short, the picture that emerges is no election of local and national representatives, but rather appointment of people unaccountable to the community who carry out Martelly and Lamothe dictates.
People had turned out in massive numbers on these three occasions to protest miserable living conditions, demand an end to the persecution of former President Aristide, call for the resignation of Martelly and Lamothe, and for free and fair elections. The police attacked the crowds with tear gas and a liquid skin-irritant, and they beat up peaceful demonstrators. Jean Nadal Aristide, a western region Lavalas coordination member and a spokesperson for the September 30th mobilization, was arrested on October 4th; again under a warrant issued by Belizaire, and nineteen demonstrators, including one dressed as Dessalines, were arrested on October 17th.
A preliminary list of the arrested organizers and participants in the October 26th protest includes Biron Odige, Rony Thimothe and three musicians from Port-au-Prince, along with Frantzou Dieu, Maxon Luxamar and Petuel Menton from Les Cayes. All are being kept in jail illegally in retaliation for their participation in the demonstrations.
Haiti Action Committee joins Congresswoman Maxine Waters, the Haitian attorneys who have brought an action in Haitian courts against the police, and the people of Haiti to denounce and condemn the on-going government repression.