NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #30/NN_1992_30.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9248

Text File | 1992-12-12 | 5.8 KB | 143 lines

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From: [e-mail] (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Haiti: Student Shot, Abuses Rising
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/** reg.carib: 442.0 **/
** Topic: STUDENT SHOT IN HAITI - ABUSES RISI **
** Written  7:49 pm  Dec 10, 1992 by hib in cdp:reg.carib **
From: Jane Regan <hib>
Subject: STUDENT SHOT IN HAITI - ABUSES RISING

Date: Thu, 10 Dec 92 19:33:34 PST
From: Jane Regan <hib>
Subject: MOUNTING ABUSES IN HAITI

>From HAITIAN INFORMATION BUREAU
An alternative news and information agency

For more information:
Tel/fax [phone] NOTE:  THIS IS A NEW NUMBER!!
E-mail: [e-mail]

For human rights information in general contact:
Platform for Human Rights - Tel/fax [phone]

    *    *    *    *  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE *    *    *    *

    HUMAN RIGHTS CONTINUING TO DETERIORATE IN HAITI

        STUDENT SHOT DEAD IN HOSPITAL BY SOLDIERS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec. 10 - Repression in Haiti continues to
mount daily as soldiers and their civilian "attaches" attack
peasants, people in poor urban neighborhoods and students.
   The most recent and most violent attack occurred on Sunday,
Dec. 6, at the Canape Vert hospital. A 20-year-old student was
shot in the heart and the head by a group of approximately
five soldiers dressed in civilian clothes.

Youth witnessed army executions
   In an exclusive interview with the Haitian Information
Bureau yesterday, a source within the Organization of
American States office here said that Jean-Sony Philogene was
found lying by the road north of Port-au-Prince Sunday morning
with bullet wounds in his leg.
    According to the same source, Philogene had been with six
other young people, all students, who had been brought to
Titanyen, a sandy, deserted area north of the capital the
military frequently uses for executions.  (According to some
sources, the seven youths were attending a concert when the
military apprehended them.)
    Soldiers reportedly shot all seven youths and partially
buried them, but Philogene was not dead.  He dragged himself
to the highway, was picked up by a passing driver and
transported to St. Francis of Sales hospital.
    At the hospital, Philogene told a doctor the story of what
had happened. Sensing danger, the doctor had Philogene
transferred to Canape Vert hospital.
    According to the O.A.S. source, within hours of Philogene's
arrival at Canape Vert, a group of five soldiers briefly
visited the hospital, apparently to ascertain the youth was
there.
    Within hours the soldiers returned in civilian clothing.
Holding a gun to a nurse's head, they demanded to be taken to
Philogene's room, where the youth was recovering from surgery.
    Once there, they ordered the youth's grandmother out of the
room and fatally shot Philogene several times in the heart and
the head.
    Police have claimed that the murder was "drug-related."
To date, Philogene has not been identified as a highschool
or university student, nor have the other six students been
identified.
     Neither the two hospitals, the doctors involved, nor the
O.A.S. has publically disclosed many of the above details, but
they are expected to do so in coming days.

Atmosphere of fear
     Currently over one dozen university students and a number
of highschool students are missing as a result of repression
during the past two weeks.
    On Dec. 1 soldiers beat 62 students at the Faculty of
Agronomy at the state university and also closed or encircled
other colleges there as part of a de facto government
offensive against the institution.  Twelve students are
missing, and it is not known if they are in hiding, in
military custody, or dead.
    Earlier this week a student delegation was prevented by
soliders from entering the state morgue to look for their peers.
    A number of highschool students and members of
popular organizations are also missing since a military sweep of
communities around the dates of Nov. 26-30.
    While human rights organizations have verified that certain
people were definitely arrested, there are a number of others
who are simply missing.
    The army said that the students and popular organizations were
responsible for several small explosions which took place
around the capital in late November, but has produced no
evidence to verify that claim.

Names of some of those missing:

* Jean Augustin, from a popular organization in Carrefour
Feuilles.
* Souverain Jean Guardy, Patrick Joseph and a third
highschool student arrested on Nov. 26 in Leogane.
* Josius Joseph, a teacher in a small school in Arcahaie.
* Cesar Pierre of Boje, north of Port-au-Prince, from a local
peasant organization.

Tomorrow the Platform for Human Rights, a coordinating group
for nine organizations which work in the field of human
rights, will present some of the following statistics in
commemoration of International Human Rights day:


SINCE SEPT. 30, 1991, COUP D'ETAT:

DOCUMENTED EXECUTIONS:   1,867 (The Platform estimates that at
least 3,000 people have been killed as a result of repression.)

DOCUMENTED ILLEGAL AND ARTIBRARY ARRESTS:  5,096 (30% of those people are still missing)

DOCUMENTED CASES OF INJURY BY BEATING OR BULLETS:  2,171

Please contact the Platform for Human Rights directly for more
details and a much more complete report.

To stay in touch with developments in Haiti, please contact the
Haitian Information Bureau for details about receiving press
releases and Haiti Info, a bi-monthly bulletin.

** End of text from cdp:reg.carib **