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].