On Martissant, Gran Ravine, and Missing the Proportionality and Chief Sources of Political Violence

Above: Commemoration of the first anniversary of Gran Ravine's Massacre.
The parents and friends of victims of the July 7, 2006 massacre walked
with tears on the one year anniversary. Photo by Wadner Pierre

Below is a response to a note posted by Michael Deibert (on the Haiti corbett listserv, post 41330) and in regard to some of the misleading reports that he authored looking at political violence in the communities of Martissant and Gran Ravine in the years following the 2004 overthrow of Haiti's elected government. It also responds to an anonymously posted criticism (on the Haiti Corbet Listserv) of the work of human rights investigators Evel Fanfan (AUMOHD) and Tom Luce (HURAH) who have been highly active in Haiti's slums of Martissant and Gran Ravine since 2005.

More on Gran Ravine and Martissant.. The 2005 HNP Report on Lame Ti Manchet and the Involvement of Officers Within HNP Ranks

I am posting here a report that was put together by Haiti's National Police (HNP) on the involvement of some of its officers with Lame Ti Manchèt (the Little Machete Army) during the time of the Latortue interim government in Haiti. 

This report, put together by HNP officials, sheds some little light on one attack that was part of a much wider campaign of continual violent joint-paramilitary/police operations conducted throughout much of 2004 and part of 2005 (as a good deal of film evidence and testimonials by witnesses and victims attest). During this time period, following the 2004 coup, an unelected "interim" government worked with sectors of Haiti's elite and security force to crackdown on communities where support for ousted elected government remained strong in the slums of Port-au-Prince. This resulted in the killing, wounding, firing from jobs, imprisonment, and exile of thousands. Numerous studies provided detail on this campaign of violence but focused mainly on what happened in Bel Air and Cité Soleil (Lawyers Guild, Harvard study, University of Miami Study, Lancet, etc).

Grassroots human rights workers ignored

I was just forwarded this compiled list of attacks on Martissant and Gran Ravine that Lame Ti Manchet are charged with. The facts behind all of these violent attacks were ignored in a recent AlterPresse article. Similarly an IPS article last year by the same author was also carefully crafted to essentially manipulate the discussion on human rights in Gran Ravine and Martissant, almost totally ignoring the role of the largest and most violent armed group. Grassroots human rights workers have been consistently reporting on the killings carried out by Lame Ti Manchet. See a response at HaitiAnalysis that was recently posted on the Haiti Corbett list. The Komisyon Episkopal Nasyonal Jistis ak Lapè has also compiled a detailed statistical analysis of violence in the area.

-20 August 2005: Massacre at Bernadette soccer field in Martissant
conducted by Haitian police and Lame Ti Manchet.
-21 August 2005: House torchings in Gran Ravine conducted by Haitian
police and Lame Ti Manchet.
-7 July 2006: Twenty innocent men, women and children massacred plus
three hundred+ torched homes in Gran Ravine conducted by Lame Ti Manchet.

-28 September 2006: Human Rights coordinator Esterne Bruner assassinated
in Gran Ravine after returning from AUMOHD's office. Lame Ti Manchet is
suspected.
-19 January 2007: Photojournalist Jean-Remy Badio assassinated in
Martissant. Lame Ti Manchet is suspected (friends, family, AHP and Le
Nouvelliste). Deibert (and RSF likewise) shamefully fail to properly attribute the charges.