AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL PRESS RELEASE
1 March 2004

Haiti: Lessons must be learned from past mistakes

Only by learning from the mistakes of the multinational intervention of 10
years ago can the international community effectively protect human
rights in
Haiti today, Amnesty International said, calling on the UN Security
Council to
heed five key human rights lessons from the 1994 multinational
intervention in
Haiti and its aftermath as the Multinational Interim Force is deployed.

The UN Security Council has mandated the force to assist Haitian security
forces "to establish and maintain public safety and law and order and to
promote
and protect human rights". Significantly, the resolution also states that
"there will be individual accountability and no impunity for violators."
On the
basis of these commitments, Amnesty International urgently calls for the
following:

1. that the Multinational Interim Force (MIF) commit to ensuring the
disarmament of both the rebel forces and the pro-Aristide militias. The
failure
to disarm the disbanded Haitian military and paramilitary in 1994 has
been one
of the root causes of ongoing political violence in Haiti.

2. that the MIF guarantee that notorious human rights offenders with
pending sentences for human rights convictions, such as rebel leaders
Louis Jodel
Chamblain and Jean Pierre Baptiste ('Jean Tatoune') are taken into custody
and brought before the Haitian justice system.

3. that the international community ensure that under no circumstances
are those convicted of or implicated in serious human rights abuses
given any
position of authority, whether in a transitional government or among the
security forces, where they might commit additional violations.

4. that the MIF help ensure that those on all sides alleged to have
committed human rights abuses during the conflict are brought to
justice. Only in
this way can the rule of law be fully upheld and the cycle of political
violence broken.

5. that international civilian human rights monitors be deployed as a
matter of urgency, in addition to multinational military and police
personnel,
to act as a deterrent to further abuses and to ensure that accurate and
detailed human rights information is provided to inform every step of the
international response to the unfolding situation in Haiti.

Background information
Currently, the USA, Canada and France have military personnel in Haiti.

In September 1995, current rebel leader Louis Jodel Chamblain was among
seven
senior military and paramilitary leaders convicted in absentia and
sentenced
to forced labour for life for involvement in the September 1993
extrajudicial
execution of Antoine Izméry, a well-known pro-democracy activist, during a
public mass at a Port-au-Prince church. Chamblain had gone into exile to
avoid
prosecution. Chamblain was also among those convicted in absentia and
sentenced
to forced labour for life for participation in the 1994 Raboteau massacre.

Another of the rebel leaders, Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean
Tatoune", is
also a former paramilitary leader who was also sentenced to forced
labour for
life for participation in the 1994 Raboteau massacre. He escaped from the
Gonaïves prison, where he was serving his sentence, during an August 2002
jailbreak.

Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Tatoune both belonged to the paramilitary
organisation FRAPH, formed by military authorities who were the de facto
leaders
of the country following the 1991 coup against then-President Aristide.
FRAPH
members were responsible for numerous human rights violations before the
1994
restoration of democratic governance.