Impunity Continues In Haiti PORT-Au-PRINCE, AUGUST 7, 1996 On July 24, a Haitian jury acquitted two alleged gunmen in the 1993 mur- der of former Justice Minister Guy Malary. The verdict caused an uproar in Haiti. The case illus- trates the many obstacles to achieving justice in the more than 3,000 killings and countless acts of intimidation carried out be- tween 1991 and 1994 by the Haitian military and its allies in the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH). In the aftermath of the October, 1994 invasion of Haiti, Port-au- Prince Police Chief, Michel Francois, who is believed to have ordered the Malary killing, slipped away to the Dominican Republic-where he was recently arrested and sent not to Haiti but to Honduras. One of Franqois' associates, former U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency asset Marcel Morissaint, was arrested in Haiti, however, and charged in the killing. Morissaint was cooperating with the investigation until he was mysteriously sprung from jail in September, 1995. According to Haiti's Minister of Justice, Morissaint was shep- herded away under U.S. protec- tion. Thousands of documents seized by the United States from army, police and FRAPH offices during the invasion might shed light on the Malary case, but the U.S. government continues to refuse to release them to Haiti. Fear also impeded the Malary investigation. Judges and prose- cutors have balked at ordering the arrest of armed thugs who remain at-large in Haiti. As a result, only two alleged hit- men-a Franqois aide and a Duvalierist from Cap Haitian-- were in custody to stand trial in the Malary case. Of the many potential wit- nesses interviewed, only two beggars dared to give their story to the police. Yet their eyewitness identification of the defendants could not surmount Haiti's most important hurdle-class. The jury pool, chosen by justices of the peace, consisted entirely of professionals who openly mocked the two beggars. The judge ridiculed one witness for not remembering the exact date and castigated him for not reporting the crime immediately, an impos- sibility during Haiti's de facto period. After a 14-hour trial that ended at four in the morning, the jurors acquitted the defendants in 40 minutes. The Malary verdict comes on the heels of the U.S. decision to release FRAPH leader Emmanuel "Toto" Constant from INS cus- tody onto the streets of New York, rather than deporting him to Haiti. Constant, who has admitted receiving a salary and encourage- ment from the CIA, is wanted at home to face charges of murder, torture and arson, and Haiti has requested his extradition. According to government offi- cials, the U.S. decision was just a "delay" in the death-squad leader's deportation, which would allow Haiti's judicial system to better prepare for his trial. According to the Baltimore Sun, however, the U.S. govern- ment has agreed to allow Constant to "self-deport" at any time to a third country of his choice-effectively allowing him to escape justice. Former President Aristide described the U.S. move as a "slap in the face" to Haiti. The release is "probably related to Mr. Constant's work for the intelligence community," according to Ira Kurzban, general counsel to the Haitian govern- ment. Whatever the reasons, it is a blatant violation of the U.S. government's commitment under the UN convention on torture to extradite or bring to trial sus- pected torturers. -Reed Brody Emergence of Second Guerrilla Group In Southern Mexico No Surprise GUERRERO, AUGUST 1, 1996 When the self-declared "People's Revolution- ary Army" (EPR) emerged from the southern Sierra Maestra of the state of Guerrero this past June 28, its appearance was no surprise. Ever since the January, 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, reports have circu- lated that a new guerrilla move- ment would soon surface in the sierra of Guerrero-the same mountains in which rebel school- teacher Lucio Cabafias and his Party of the Poor fighters harried the Mexican army between 1967 and 1974. The new guerrillas made their debut in Aguas Blancas during a memorial for 17 members of the Organization of Campesinos of the Southern Sierra (OCSS), gunned down in June, 1995 by Guerrero state police. Waving home-made flags and heavy weapons, about 70 neatly- uniformed guerrillas laid wild- flowers at a memorial for the dead campesinos, and read "The Manifesto of Aguas Blancas" to some 2,000 startled onlookers. The document called for the "overthrow of the antipopular government" and the establish- ment of a "workers' republic," to be run by local self-defense com- mittees and "popular justice tri- bunals." The militarization of the sierra and of Guerrero's Pacific coast Vol XXX. No 2SEP1-IOcr 1996 1 Vol XXX, No 2 SEPT/OCT 1996 1NEWSBRIEFS was immediate. Armored troop carriers, tanks and helicopters moved into the region, combing mountain towns for suspected guerrillas. In Tepetixtla, once an OCSS stronghold, soldiers con- ducted house-to-house searches. Eight campesinos accused of being EPR members have been jailed and, they claim, tortured into signing confessions. A dozen militants of an umbrella campe- sino coalition which includes the OCSS have also been imprisoned. Although greeted initially with much skepticism, the EPR has demonstrated its seriousness by staging "lightning" appearances to read their Aguas Blancas man- ifesto and to solicit recruits. EPR fighters have been seen through- out the state-from the western "hot lands," to the impoverished, indigenous mountain regions, to down-and-out popular colonies in the port city of Acapulco. The manifesto itself has been trans- lated into Nahuatl, Mexico's sec- ond language, suggesting a base in Guerrero's indigenous regions. The mysterious group appears to be avoiding confrontation with Mexican security forces, and clashes have been infrequent. On June 28, three state judicial police officers were wounded at an EPR road block near Chilpancingo, the state capital. The EPR also took credit for an ambush on a military convoy on July 19, in which an army captain was reportedly wounded. Meanwhile, the mili- tary claims to have found weapons caches, medical supplies and leftist literature, including Proletario, the publication of the Revolutionary Party of Workers and Campesinos-Popular Union (PROCUP), now merged with Cabafias' Party of the Poor (PDLP). Government officials have been quick to label the rebels as "com- mon criminals." Cuauht6moc Cilrdenas, leader of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), even suggested they were in the employ of Guerrero's dis- graced exgovernor Ruben Figueroa, who was forced from office for his role in the cover-up of the Aguas Blancas massacre. Yet the EPR appears to be grounded in left-wing groups like PROCUP-PDLP. Documents obtained by the Mexico City Times also hint at ties to Peru's Shining Path. One group to which the EPR has definitely not been linked is the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). Zapatista leaders have denied any involvement in the new guerrilla outbreak. "They have clean uniforms and good weapons," EZLN's Sub- comandante Marcos told re- porters in Chiapas. "That proves they are not Zapatistas." Indeed, it may be the EZLN's increasingly pacific posture that provoked the emergence of the EPR at a delicate moment in EZLN-government talks. Their sudden appearance underscores the fact that some groups still see the armed option as a viable vehi- cle for social change in Mexico. -John Ross Elections In The Dominican Republic: A Break With The Past? NEW YORK, AUGUST 17, 1996 L eonel Fernindez, who was sworn in as president of the Dominican Republic on August 16, has one thing going for him that no other Dominican presi- dent has ever had. He won his office fair and square, even though he relied on a question- able alliance with exiting seven- term President Joaquin Balaguer to do so. The New York-raised Fernmndez, a 42-year-old lawyer and professor, was virtually unknown until former President Juan Bosch, of the center- left Dominican Liberation Party (PLD), picked him as his running mate for the 1994 presidential elec- tions. Bosch helped secure Fer- nindez's 1996 victory by striking a deal with his long-time rival Balaguer. In exchange for the votes of Balaguer's center-right Reformist Party, Fernindez promised not to sack Balaguer's "note-bear- ers"-political appointees on the government payroll. Balaguer's last-minute endorsement of FernAndez was also motivated by a deep-seated animosity towards the other top presidential contender, Jos6 Francisco Pefia G6mez, of the center-left Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD). FernAndez has promised to end the highly centralized, caudillo style of government of which Balaguer was a master. He has also promised to create working institu- tions that will slow the massive flow of Dominicans to the United States--51,047 legal immigrants and an estimated 30,000 illegals in 1994 alone. "The problem is jobs and economic security, which the Dominican people don't find here, and that is what motivates them to emigrate," said FernAndez in an interview shortly after his election. "There has to be access to health, education, social security." Financing such social programs may be difficult for FernAndez, who has inherited a domestic pub- lic-sector deficit estimated at $730 million. He will also have to find a way to bail out the disastrous public- sector enterprises, which together are the largest source of jobs in the country. No legislative elections accompa- nied this year's presidential race, which took place two years early because of Balaguer's agreement to step down in 1996 after widespread allegations that he stole the 1994 election from Pefia G6mez. As a result, the PLD has only one of 30 senators and 12 of 120 representa- tives in Congress. While the PLD may gain seats in Congress if leg- islative elections are held as planned in 1998, the PRD, which controls the lower house, and the Reformist Party, which is one vote short of a Senate majority, have threatened to push those elections back to coincide with the presiden- tial vote in the year 2000. FernAndez faces a difficult choice: the PLD will either have to ally with the Reformist Party to get reforms through Congress, or Fernandez will have to resort to governing by decree-the style of government that he has promised to change. -Michele Wucker Workshop On Gender and Inequality Held In Conjunction With Sio Paulo Forum SAN SALVADOR, AUGUST 1, 1996 6 "Every day in the political "Lwork we do in mixed-gender organizations, we have to fight to keep the issue of gender a top prior- ity," said Lety M6ndez, member of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) and coor- dinator of the First Continental Women's Workshop, held July 23- 25 in conjunction with the Sixth Encounter of the Sdo Paulo Forum in San Salvador, El Salvador. "We have to keep breaking open the space for women." Women were underrepresented and gender was largely ignored in previous Sdo Paulo Forums, according to M6ndez. Women par- ticipants at the Fourth Forum, held in Havana in 1993, made their pres- ence felt at the final plenary, where they stirred up a debate about gen- der. At the Forum's fifth meeting in Montevideo in 1995, they kept up the pressure. The Forum Working Group agreed to sponsor a Women's Workshop in conjunction with the Forum meeting planned for the following year in El Salvador, but it later reneged on its promise of financial support. One of the goals of the Women's Workshop was to examine the impact of neoliberalism on women's lives. Dorita Carcafio, a Cuban rep- resentative to the International Democratic Federation of Women, criticized those who suggest that economic terms-structural adjust- ment, external debt, neoliberal- ism-are too difficult for women to understand. "Women not only understand these terms," she said, "but suffer their consequences daily." A roundtable on work exam- ined the feminization of poverty and the growing vulnerability of workers resulting from the expansion of the maquiladora system. Another on health and education examined the impact of cuts in social spending and the deterioration of services for women and their families. The workshop's other key objec- tive was to integrate a conscious- ness of gender into the political analysis of the left. Of particular concern was the left's resistance to gender equality and its refusal to take women seriously. "Women do not fit into the authoritarian schemes of our parties," said Lorena Pefia, an FMLN representa- tive to Congress and founding member of the Ml1ida Anaya Montes Women's Movement. "We do not wish to participate in a space where we are systematically made to appear incompetent, where we are constantly accused of being emotional, and where overt or covert sexual harassment is the norm." Participants in the workshop effectively tied their focus on women and gender to a general understanding of the problems con- fronting the region-in sharp con- trast to discussions at the Forum itself. The Forum, which purported a comprehensive approach, not only marginalized gender issues but the women participants as well. With the exception of the gender round- table (in which few men partici- pated), all of the roundtables were dominated by men. Many Forum delegates apparently suffered from a misconception about the meaning of gender, reducing it to so-called "women's problems" like domestic violence and rape. Concerned with these develop- ments, Lety M6ndez led a delega- tion to the roundtable responsible for preparing the Forum's central document, where she proposed that the women participate in order to ensure that gender analysis be incor- porated into the final document. "The subject of gender has always been viewed exclusively as a 'women's problem,' and women are left feeling invisible in the theories, discussions and actions of the left," she said. If this continues, "gender will always appear as an appendix, rather than as central to the propos- als and alternatives developed." In the end, however, women's propos- als were simply annexed to the cen- tral document. The only direct refer- ence to women's concerns in the summary of the central document roundtable was: "It is necessary that the entire document achieve an authentic focus on gender." Despite very modest gains, the left's continuing resistance to women's equality was manifested throughout the Forum. Perhaps the most dramatic example was the closing remarks made by FMLN representative Shafik Handal to the assembled delegates. Apparently unable to resist the temptation to put women back in their place, he included the feminine and mascu- line forms of most nouns through- out his speech, pausing and smirk- ing before emphasizing the femi- nine form. This elicited a great deal of laughter from the floor, demon- strating all too clearly the formida- ble challenges ahead. -- Erica Polakoff Sources Reed Brody is former Human Rights Director of the UN Observer Mission in El Salvador (ONUSAL) and has assisted the Haitian Government in prosecuting human rights crimes. John Ross is a freelance journalist based in San Francisco who has widely covered events in Southern Mexico. Michele Wucker is a freelance journalist based in New York City. She is currently preparing a book about the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Erica Polakoff teaches Sociology and Women's Studies at Bloomfield College in New Jersey, where she is Sociology Coordinator.
