to begin with. The same one for whom Latortue was a "compromise" between Abraham (America's choice) and Smarck (France's choice) by a vote of 3 for Abraham (US), 3 for Smark (Fr) and 1 for Latortue.
We get Abraham in the end ANYWAY. Our own little puppet
==
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights. Paper Laws, Steel Bayonets: Breakdown of the Rule of Law in Haiti
New York: Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, 1990. vi + 215 pp.
Americas Watch and National Coalition for Haitian Refugees. Silencing a People: The Destruction of Civil Society in Haiti. New York: Human Rights Watch, 1993. x + 136 pp. $10.00
The following was published in 1996 in Journal of Third World Studies 13(1):369-371.
By Robert Lawless
These reports result from the work of some of the world's outstanding human rights organizations. Since 1978 the Lawyers Committee has worked to promote international human rights and refugee law and legal procedures in the United States and abroad. Americas Watch was established in 1981 to monitor and promote observance of internationally recognized human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Established in 1982, the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees is composed of 47 legal, human rights, civil rights, church, labor, and Haitian community organizations working together to protect the rights of Haitian refugees under the U.S. and international law. Human Rights Watch began in 1978 with the founding of Helsinki Watch by a group of publishers, lawyers, and other activists and now maintains offices around the world. An independent organization supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations, Human Rights Watch accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly, and systematically investigates human rights abuses in some 60 countries.
<snip>
The brutal activities at all levels of the military went beyond the expected cruelties of empowered soldiers. Essentially an army of occupation ruled Haiti during those three years until September 1994 when the U.S. took over much of the governance of Haiti. The occupiers viewed pretty much the entire society as the enemy with only a few collaborators among the lumpen proletariat and the upper classes. If the three- year regime of General Raoul Cedras had any policy at all, it consisted simply of the notion that the Haitian people had to be denied any organized platform from which to express its discontent, which meant that all organizations and even temporary gatherings that were not directed control by the military were targeted for immediate and violent destruction.
<snip>
The report by the Lawyers Committee documents the abuses of the military regimes of Henri Namphy, Prosper Avril, and Herard Abraham from the period after the ouster of Jean-Claude Duvalier to several months before the election of Aristide in December 1990. The opening statement sets the tone: "There is no system of justice in Haiti" (p. 1). The title of the report comes from a Haitian proverb that states "Law is paper; bayonet is steel."
The Lawyers Committee has recommendations that are similar to those in the report published by the Human Rights Watch--and that are similarly naive. The Lawyers Committee recommended, for example, that the "rural section chiefs and their assistants, currently under the control of the army, . . .be placed under the control of the Ministry of Justice" (p. 19). Fortunately Aristide recognizes what needs to be done to move Haiti toward a society of law and justice, and simply abolished the institution of the rural section chiefs--twice, once during his first few months in office before the coup and once after he had been restored to office.
<snip>
http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/bookreviews/lawyers.htm
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