I am now writing from Port-au-Prince, Haiti. I arrived here on Sunday and am freelancing for several organizations for the next few months.
While I will try to keep a broad lens for the blog, I thought I would kick it off with a post on human rights in Haiti, as the human rights situation hit me in the face when I arrived. Driving through the city I could glimpse the difficult quality of life of the 1.3 million Haitians still displaced after the 12 January earthquake, and the inequality between the glaring poverty of the many with the luxurious houses, cars and watches of the wealthy few.
But more on that later. Today the human rights issue is the question of justice and extrajudicial killing.
This morning, when I came into the local radio station (radio melodie) where I am working I ran into an acquaintance, Oreste R Joseph, who has a multi-lingual education center not far from the station. I asked him how he slept and he said “well, it was a bit difficult because my cousin was assassinated yesterday.”
Hi cousin was Doctor Jean Ronard Joseph. He has been termed a “militant doctor on behalf of the Haitian people.” He was also the general director of ONA (the national office for insurance and aging), an insurance company. A few years ago he worked to clean the ONA system of “zombie checks”—people who claim insurance or salaries without actually working for the government or for companies.
Oreste Joseph suspects the doctor’s assassination is linked to his fiscal policies, but it could also be linked to Doctor Joseph’s political involvement in the parties l’Alternative, and le KID. He also comes from a highly visible and historically politically active family with links both to the Duvalier regime and opposition to Duvalier in later years.
No one knows precisely who carried out the murder or why. The Port-au-Prince police have said they are looking into the case, but Joseph has little faith in state-based security and justice. “In light of the situation of Haitian justice now, if you don’t secure yourself, you’re not secure. That is to say, we can’t wait for the state for security, nor for justice.”
This example points to a broader social issue several Haitians have described to me already. Pierre Richard Cajuste, a political analyst and consultant for the government and international institutions said that in his opinion, the root of Haiti’s difficulties is not poverty, it’s a lack of organization, of concrete policies, and effective structures. The government’s struggles to address the 12 January earthquake or to provide even basic social services fits Cajuste’s analysis.
But the unfortunate repercussion of the current widespread disorganization is extreme human rights violations.
