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<b>FURY AS HAITI QUASHES MASSACRE VERDICTS <br>
</b>By<b><i> </i></b>Reed Lindsay<br><br>
Sun 15 May 2005<br><br>
<b><a href="http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=527092005">
http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=527092005</a></font>
<font size=3 color="#800000"> <br><br>
</font><font size=3>PORT-AU-PRINCE -</b> In a nation where
state-sponsored massacres are as common as the impunity granted to their
perpetrators, the Raboteau trial shone as a beacon of long-denied
justice.<br>
<br>
In November 2000, a Haitian jury convicted 16 former soldiers and
paramilitaries for their participation in a bloody 1994 rampage through a
seaside slum called Raboteau that left at least eight people dead. A week
later, a court convicted 37 more defendants in absentia.<br>
<br>
The trial was praised by the <b>United Nations as "a huge step
forward"</b> and hailed by international jurists as a milestone
human rights case.<br>
<br>
But last week the convictions of at least 15 of the Raboteau defendants
were overturned in one fell swoop by Haiti’s Supreme Court in a murky
ruling that represents the latest in a series of human rights scandals
since interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue assumed office 14 months
ago.<br>
<br>
"Raboteau was perhaps the only time [in Haiti] that justice was
achieved after a massacre, and in a scrupulously fair trial," said
Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch. "To overturn that verdict is to
say that the only justice possible in Haiti is the justice of those with
guns. It’s a sad day."<br>
<br>
Legal experts say the Supreme Court’s decision, which stated that the
case should not have been tried by a jury, was based on a technicality.
According to <b>Brian Concannon,</b> a US lawyer who helped prepare the
prosecution’s case for the 2000 Raboteau trial, the Supreme Court already
approved the jury trial a year before it began.<br>
<br>
"The court not only reversed its previous position, it did so after
a secret hearing," said Concannon. "The legal justification for
the about-face is thin. The decision’s analysis of the core issue took
only four sentences."<br>
<br>
The Latortue administration has denied exerting any influence over the
court in its decision, responding to critiques that the government has
made a habit of trampling judicial independence. Last December, justice
minister Bernard Gousse removed two prominent judges’ caseloads after
they had ordered the release of prisoners who were political opponents of
the government.<br>
<br>
The Supreme Court’s decision comes nine months after paramilitary leader
Louis Jodel Chamblain was acquitted over the 1993 murder of pro-democracy
activist <b>Antoine Izmery</b> in a trial Amnesty International condemned
as "a very sad record in the history of Haiti".<br><br>
Chamblain has remained in prison awaiting a retrial of the Raboteau
massacre, a right he is granted under Haitian law because he had been
convicted in absentia. It was not clear whether the recent Supreme Court
ruling would lead to the release of Chamblain, who was second-in-command
of a murderous paramilitary group called FRAPH that was allied with the
military regime.<br>
<br>
The annulment of the convictions appeared to apply only to those
convicted at the jury trial, and not to Chamblain and other self-exiled
defendants convicted in absentia, such as paramilitary leader Emmanuel
Constant, and the three top leaders of the military dictatorship - Raoul
Cedras, Phillipe Biamby and Michel Francois.<br>
<br>
Latortue owes his mandate in part to Chamblain, who helped lead a revolt
of former soldiers and other armed groups that ousted former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004, during which all those
imprisoned for the Raboteau massacre were broken out of jail. Latortue
hailed them as "freedom fighters" in a speech he gave in
Gonaives, the city where Raboteau is located.<br>
<br>
None of the Raboteau convicts has been recaptured by the US-backed
government of Latortue, which has begun paying compensation packages to
thousands of former soldiers despite warnings from experts that doing so
would undermine a UN-led disarmament program.<br>
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