It was the middle of the night when masked men
armed with semi-automatic assault rifles burst into the Cap Haitian
home of 14-year-old Marjory, the oldest daughter of a local trade
unionist. The men were members of the disbanded Haitian military
who reformed into the armed gangs who overthrew democratically-elected
president Jean Bertrand Aristide one year ago. When they discovered
that her father, who the political opposition sought because of
his support for the pro-democracy movement, was in hiding, Marjory
says, the armed men did the unthinkable. For three hours different men raped Marjory, her mother and an
11-year-old cousin.
It’s been six months since she was attacked but Marjory remembers
every moment of that night. She describes her attackers in detail,
down to the scars on one man’s hands and the smell of cigarettes
on another’s jacket. She avoids eye contact when telling her story,
saying that she is embarrassed to tell what happened to her.
“They violated me. [When it was happening] I closed my eyes and
waited for them to finish... One of the men told me to open my
eyes and look at him while he [raped me]. I didn’t want to look
at him. They hit me when I cried.”
Marjory is part of a growing number of girls
and young women who human rights investigators say have been
victims of mass rape committed
by members of the disbanded military and their compatriots who
patrol the countryside and Haiti’s cities, hunting down supporters
of Haiti’s pro-democracy movement.
Marjory says she was targeted because her father’s trade union
organized against a wealthy businessman and because her parents
are members of Lavalas, the political party led by Jean Bertrand
Aristide. Other victims say they were targeted because they or
their family members belong to other pro-democracy political organizations
or because they work with peasant unions or local women’s groups.
“Rape is becoming a common tool of oppression,” explains
attorney Mario Joseph whose organization Bureau
des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) has investigated hundreds
of human rights cases in the past year. Joseph, who assisted in
the prosecution of the human rights crimes committed during the
last coup says that it is discouraging to see the number of convicted
human rights violators who are now walking free and serving in
the new American-installed interim government.
“Women and young girls are raped because their
father or another relative is a member of Lavalas or is targeted
[by the political
opposition]. They are raped as a form of punishment. The victims
do not feel they can go to the police for help with their problems
because in many areas the people who victimized them are the ones
running the show; they are the ones patrolling the streets as if
they are police, committing crimes with impunity under the eyes
of the UN. And even in Port-au-Prince, the former military has
been hired into the national police force.”
According to Charles Leon, chief of the Haitian
National Police, 500 former members of the Haitian Army have
been integrated into
the police force, with plans for an additional 500-1000 former
soldiers to be hired within the next year. Haiti’s army was disbanded
in 1994 by then President Jean Bertrand Aristide after soldiers
committed numerous human rights violations, including mass rapes,
during the 1991-94 coup.
United Nations soldiers have also been accused of participating
in sexual attacks. Damian Onses-Cardona,
spokesperson for the UN mission in Haiti, announced this week that
they are “very urgently” investigating a case in which Pakistani
soldiers were accused of raping a 23-year-old woman at a banana
plantation in the northern town of Gonaives.
“The foreigners grabbed me and pulled
my pants down, had me lie on the ground and then raped me,” said
the woman who asked that her name be withheld. She says two soldiers
raped her while a third watched.
More than 7,000 UN troops from countries
including China, Brazil and the United States, among others,
are stationed in Haiti.
No one knows how many women and girls have
been victims of politically motivated rapes since the violence
began early last year, say human
rights advocates. The two major human rights organizations in Haiti,
the CARLI hotline and the National Coalition for Haitian Rights
(NCHR) refuse to investigate human rights reports in the poorer
neighborhoods, where most of the attacks have occurred, “because
those zones are all Aristide-supporter, it’s not safe for us to
go there,” says NCHR’s Pierre Esperance.
Both organizations receive extensive funding from the United States
Agency for International Development (USAID) including a large
chunk of the 1.4 million dollars which was distributed primarily
to anti-Aristide organizations in the year prior to the February
2004 coup, according to USAID area director Pamela Callen. In an
ironic twist, critics say that the CARLI hotline and NCHR only
focus their energies on the few human rights violations they say
were committed by members of the pro-democracy movement.
Meanwhile, the handful of attorneys
who are investigating Haiti’s devolving human rights situation are swamped with reports
of atrocities including illegal arrests, torture, murder and rape. “And
what we are seeing more often is that after a woman is raped, the
attackers force her son or brother to have sexual relations with
her as they watch, so that both she and her family are violated
again,” explains Joseph.
That was the case with Joesephina Helicaux,
66, whose son is a member of a peasant union that has called
for the return of democracy
to Haiti. Although they would not consider themselves Aristide
supporters, the family believes that the coup and his removal from
power by foreign forces was illegal and that Aristide should be
allowed to finish his term as president. Josephina’s son said as
much during a recent demonstration, where he was interviewed on
a local radio station.
The next day the Helicaux family was eating
dinner when a group of armed men burst into their home. The men
were not masked and
Joesephina Helicaux says that two were in police uniforms. “I told
the children to be quite and to stop crying. The men searched our
room. Afterwards they raped all of us [women], even the girls,
and made the men stand and watch,” she says. The youngest girl
who was attacked is a 9-year-old.
Although the son who had spoken on the radio
was not home, another one was, as well as a 28-year-old nephew.
The attackers forced
Joesephina Helicaux to have intercourse with her nephew and son,
she says. “They laughed [while it was happening]. They told us ‘move
here, do this,’” she remembers.
After their attackers left, a neighbor contacted
American missionary Ann Lautan who came to the home with Alfred
Desslieanes, pastor
of the New Life Church in Delmas. The pair transported the family
to Port-au-Prince’s General Hospital where doctor’s refused to
treat them, reportedly because they feared reprisals from the government.
“The doctors told us outright, they don’t treat chimeres and
if this family was victimized by the police or by the former military
then they are chimeres,” says Lautan. Chimere is
a derogatory term for the unemployed that has become synonymous
with both “gangster” and “Aristide-supporter.”
The family was taken to a private clinic where
doctors treated them for bleeding, contusions, vaginal tearing,
and, in the case
of the nephew, several broken bones from a beating he received
after he initially refused to follow the men’s orders to have sexual
relations with his grandmother, says Desslienanes.
Lyn Duff has reported extensively on Haiti for the past
ten years as a correspondent for Pacific News Service and KPFA-FM's
Flashpoints. She can be contacted at [email protected]. |