Human Rights Investigation Calls Haiti More Violent and More Inhuman

Report Documents U.S. Role in Chaotic Interim Government

A new and extensive investigation into Haiti's human rights situation has found conditions in the country have sharply deteriorated under an interim government that replaced ousted President Jean Bertrand-Aristide in February 2004. Life for the impoverished majority is becoming more violent and more inhuman as the months pass since the elected government's removal, the report concludes. The investigation team led by Thomas Griffin, a former federal law enforcement officer and now an attorney practicing immigration law in Philadelphia, conducted its interviews and observations in Haiti during November 2004. Their 60-page report, published by the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami School of Law and online at the website for the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, www.ijdh.org, includes documentation of masked Haitian National Police routinely committing summary executions of civilians, an outline of U.S. involvement in the current government, and graphic photos of victims of violence. Griffin says including the stark photographs was an essential part of reporting the investigation's findings.Haiti is such a hotly debated political topic that it is important for the report to be as objective as possible, he said. The photos are necessary because they can't be spun one way or another for political purposes. Anyone who sees these pictures will say this should not be happening to human beings anywhere, especially just a few hundred miles from Disney World. [more]