Rights Groups Dispute U.S. on Abuses in Haiti

Systematic human rights abuses continue in Haiti, three groups said Monday, disputing the Bush Administration’s contention that no Haitians who have fled their homeland have been persecuted since being returned to the strife-torn Caribbean nation.

After a recent trip to Haiti, Americas Watch, the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees and Physicians for Human Rights said the regime that seized control on Sept. 30 has terrorized poor neighborhoods.

It has shut down labor unions, church groups and private radio stations. And it has threatened patients and officials in hospitals and destroyed crops. As a result of the intimidation, thousands of Haitians have been forced to flee their homes, the groups said.

They criticized the Bush Administration for what they said was its muted criticism of the regime that deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. They urged President Bush to give the more than 8,000 Haitian refugees asylum until stability is restored.

Since the September coup, “the army has embarked on a systematic and continuing campaign to stamp out the vibrant civil society that has taken root in Haiti,” the groups said.

But a State Department spokesman said Monday that U.S. officials in Haiti have monitored the treatment of 416 Haitians returned since the coup. So far, “we have seen no generalized persecution of people who have gone back,” spokesman Richard Boucher said at a press briefing Monday.

In their report, the three groups said the post-coup massacres have ended. But “selected assassinations, disappearances, severe beatings and political arrests continue.” It also said that some Haitians have been arrested merely for having photos of Aristide in their homes.

The report quotes “reliable Haitian human rights groups” as estimating that 1,000 Haitians were killed in the first two weeks after the coup and another 500 since.

The groups said the army has attacked and “neutralized” organizations--including church groups and labor unions--believing that assembly by their members could spawn organized resistance. Haiti’s private radio stations, the most important mass media for the nation’s dispersed, largely illiterate population, have been silenced. Earlier this month, one radio station manager was abducted.

In their place, the government established Radio VSN-57, named for the Tontons Macoutes secret police of former Haitian strongman Francois Duvalier, the groups said. To intimidate enemies, the station recently began broadcasting threats against specific Aristide supporters and groups.