February 7, 2003

Repressive History of the Army

The Forces Armées d’Haiti was founded by the U.S. during its 1915-1934 occupation of Haiti. U.S. enlisted men and officers served as the original officers of the force, paid with receipts seized from Haitian customs. The U.S. continued to provide generous support to the institution, notably during the 30-year Duvalier dictatorship. Haiti's armed forces had a long history of destabilizing governments and supporting ruthless dictatorships. In September 1991, the military exiled the elected authorities. Over the next three years, the army and its paramilitary allies killed over 5,000 democracy supporters, and tortured, raped and otherwise terrorized hundreds of thousands more. Soon after the return of democracy in October 1994, President Aristide, disbanded the army. Former FADH have been involved in several attempts to destabilize the government, including attacks on police facilities in July 2001, and attempted coup d'etat in December 2001, an attack on a police facility in November 2002, and harassment of peasants, medical workers and journalists in December, 2002. Many former FADH integrated into the Haitian National Police have been implicated in human rights violations, including two convicted in the 1999 Carrefour-Feuilles massacre.

THE CREATION OF THE Haitian National Police

The Haitian National Police (PNH) was created in June, 1995. Some former members of the FADH were integrated to provide leadership, but the vast majority of recruits had no previous law enforcement experience.  In addition, Haiti's justice system, government and citizenry had no experience engaging with a democratic police force. As a result of the end of U.S. training through ICITAP, Haiti’s police force of approximately 4,000 officers, is severely understaffed. New York City, which has a population of 8 million, comparable to that of Haiti, has a 39,110 person police force.

RECENT EFFORTS TO IMPROVE THE PNH

With limited resources available to it, the Police Academy has been recruiting and training new officers to be stationed throughout the country. Last November a class of 900 cadets entered the Police Academy and will graduate at the end of February. A new class is scheduled to follow immediately. Yet due to a U.S. embargo on the lawful purchase of guns, these officers do have side arms. Although the police force is still understaffed and under equipped, it has made substantial strides in rooting out corruption. The chief inspector general of the police, who is charged with investigating police, has been tough on police officers accused of violating human rights or who lack  discipline, severely sanctioning or remove them from the force. He has arrested officers suspected of involvement in drug trafficking, including the police chief of the South East for failure to properly cooperate in investigation into disappearance of large quantity of cocaine. Even behavior in a police officer's personal life, such as domestic violence, calls for automatic dismissal from the force. In early February President Aristide once again called on the Haitian judicial system to assume its responsibility and prosecute any police officers accused of corruption or other crimes.