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.
