Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 28, 1994 TAG: 9403280054
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE LENGTH: Medium
For the past six weeks, Haitian death squads have been killing, then mutilating the bodies of an increasing number of victims and dumping the corpses at busy intersections on the slum's dirt streets. Police then insist that the bodies be left for hours or even days, so every resident gets the terrifying message.
The mutilations are a new and gruesome kind of political violence, apparently part of a campaign by pro-military groups to take control of Cite Soleil, a traditional stronghold of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was overthrown in a 1991 coup.
"They are now spreading terror so that people will not take to the streets and say, `Down with FRAPH' and ask for Aristide to return," said a resident of the slum, home to about 200,000 people who live in hovels separated by streams of sewage and dirt tracks.
FRAPH, the Front for Progress and Advancement of the Haitian People, a pro-army group formed last year to keep Aristide out, has been opening offices and recruiting hundreds of members in Cite Soleil.
Some members patrol the streets at night as if they were police, armed and sometimes wearing stocking masks, several neighborhood residents said.
Residents also report they have seen two squads of about 10 men each, which they describe as paramilitary death squads, stalking people and in some cases taking them to military barracks before killing them.
A group of about 10 men abducted and killed Aristide sympathizer Dady Pierre, 33, on March 10, according to witnesses, who said they recognized among them two FRAPH members, a soldier and two police auxiliaries known here as attaches.
Pierre's corpse was later found wrapped in a sheet. His face had been hacked away, apparently with a machete.
FRAPH leader and co-founder Emmanuel Constant has denied all reports of FRAPH brutality, insisting that party offices in the slum and elsewhere are community centers in which he hopes to promote Haitian peace and reconciliation, and play bingo.
"No one can say that FRAPH has killed anyone. No card saying `FRAPH' has been found with any body," he told The Herald.
Violence and brutality in Cite Soleil have been increasing, according to many people familiar with the slum, since a huge fire burned dozens of slum houses Dec. 27. Residents have charged that FRAPH members set the blaze. Constant denies any role in the blaze.
Observers with the United Nations and Organization of American States human rights mission say they have documented increasing political violence in the whole country. In February and the first two weeks of March, the observers counted 71 killings.
But the trend is especially alarming in Cite Soleil, they added. From March 1 to 15, the bodies of 16 execution victims were found in the slum. Countrywide, 21 killings were reported during that week.
Of the bodies found in Cite Soleil, at least half had all or part of their faces cut off, an observer said. The mutilations do not seem intended to prevent identification. In one case, a man's passport-sized, black-and-white photograph was left on top of his corpse. In others, faceless bodies have been left dressed in their own clothing, which relatives recognized.
"The police don't let your family pick up your body, even if you offer them money," said a young man in Cite Soleil who said he is afraid and desperate to leave Haiti.
Instead, according to many witnesses, pigs that wander through the vast slum, scavenging garbage, have eaten parts of the corpses.
It's one of Haiti's ironies that while the killers are going unpunished, the pigs of Cite Soleil are sometimes detained - by "pigcatchers" from the nearby neighborhood of Delmas who have recently begun rounding up animals on the loose and charging about $3 to release them.
Several people said they have stopped eating pork.
by CNB