BRUTAL REPRESSION RISING STEADILY
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 29 - Army-led repression appears to be rising 
throughout the country's nine departments.
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Mutilated bodies, terrified peasants on the run and "disappearances" attest 
to a new wave of repression organized and carried out by the army and its 
assistants - paramilitary attaches, rural section chiefs and their lackeys 
and the "members" of the army's front group, FRAPH (Front Arme 
Revolutionnaire pour l'Avancement et le Progres Haitien).

Although no single human rights group is able to monitor conditions 
throughout the country, reports from rural correspondents, church-based 
groups and doctors confirm the situation is deteriorating .

Scores of Unidentified Bodies

Bodies are turning up in various parts of the country. The 12 bodies found 
on July 12 in Gressier may have been part of a large group of up to 30, 
local human rights monitors say. Residents say they were forced to bury the 
other bodies, but there has been no formal investigation.

In an attempt to counteract the news of rising repression, on July 22 the 
regime issued a communique accusing journalists and human rights groups of 
"the odious traffic of stealing bodies and, after riddling them with 
bullets, making them pass as victims of what they call 'la repression.'"

The Interior Ministry said that the buying, stealing or dealing in bodies 
is punishable by "three months imprisonment."

On July 12, three mutilated bodies were dumped on a beach near Cap-Haitien, 
and July 14, two more turned up. All the victims were young men.

On July 18, residents of a poor neighborhood in the capital reported 
finding three heads in the Rockefeller sewage canal.

On July 23, the body of 27-year-old Andrelien Maurice was found riddled 
with bullets near Leogane. He had "disappeared" a week earlier.

Doctors who work at the public hospital in Port-au-Prince report numerous 
people coming with bullet and stab wounds. [The regime has forbidden all 
press access to the hospital, but some doctors have ignored the obvious  
"gag" order to speak out against the repression.]

"What's happening is very serious," said one, whose name is withheld for 
his own protection. "Some people think repression has gone down, but we 
all see clearly from the patients that come in or bodies we find on the 
streets that repression is going up. What is certain is that lately we 
have been receiving many more cases."

Last night a 24-year-old showed up in his clinic at 9 p.m. with a severe 
wound on his head, which was sliced open across the top. 

The city morgue is also fuller than usual, another doctor said, and at 
times has scores of decapitated bodies or bodies with multiple bullet or 
severe knife or machete wounds. Every Saturday morgue workers dump dozens 
of unclaimed bodies into common graves.

"Subversives" Arrested, Disappeared

Some of those dumped by the hospital workers could be the many people - 
mostly men - who "disappear" every week.

On July 16 and 18, two members of popular organizations in Cite Soleil 
disappeared. Moise Paul and Emile Georges were both known supporters of 
democracy and of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.  Their whereabouts is 
still unknown. Two members of the Pierre family also disappeared from 
Cite Soleil, on July 10 and 13.

On July 22, police raided a poor neighborhood in the capital and "arrested" 
four rural democratic militants who were hiding out there, accusing them 
of "subversive activities."

Two were from the Charlemagne Peralte Peasant Movement, active northeast 
of the capital, and the other two were from a Saut d'Eau peasant 
federation. One of those was also a local government offical from that 
town, which is located in the High Plateau north of the capital.

The four men are being held at police Anti-Gang headquarters, which is 
not a legal prison. They have not been formally charged with anything 
and lawyers have not been able to see them.

On July 21, soldiers at an army check-point in Gonaives arrested Olga 
Benoit, a member of CRAD (Centre de Recherche et d'Action pour le 
Developpement). Benoit, released a few hours later, was subject to 
"grave and indecent insults of a sexist nature" and was arrested because 
she was carrying copies of a Creole bulletin, SAK PASE, CRAD reported.

On July 14, an army commando invaded a home in a poor Cap-Haitien 
neighborhood and accused the residents of being from Bassin Caiman, one 
of the Le Borgne communities which has been under constant army 
occupation and attack since April.

The soldiers searched the home, stole a number of goods like rice and 
beans, and arrested the two residents - Ronald Francois and Lozier 
Desir - two members of Asanble Popile Departmental No, affiliated with 
Asanble Popile Nasyonal (APN), a mass organization. They also arrested 
five others in the neighborhood.  After being harassed and roughed up, 
six were released. Desir is still in military custody.

"The individual who is still incarcerated is there because we are carrying 
out an investigation concerning an association he belongs to which is 
fabricating certain subversive documents in order to do certain things in 
the town," explained a Cap-Haitien army officer in a radio interview on 
June 20.

Surprisingly, the interviewer, Jean-Claude Larousse from the conservative 
Radio Metropole in the capital, also said he gained access to the prisoner. 
(Long before their explusion earlier this month, the O.A.S./U.N. 
International Civilian Mission had ceased receiving such preferential 
treatment.)

Larousse reported Desir said he had been forced to eat leaflets, but also, 
perhaps to depoliticize the case, claimed Desir "has never been in a 
political organization and is not a member of APN," even though Desir is 
known as an APN member to local militants as well as to APN leaders in 
the capital.

Many in the democratic movement were shocked by the news story. Haiti 
Proges newspaper this week said: "This is what is called killing two 
birds with one stone: raise the image of the army and discredit a 
popular organization."

Police and armed civilians invaded the headquarters of a pro-democracy 
political party on July 19, breaking up a meeting of about 35 members of 
the new "Camp Democratique du 16 Decembre" (K-16) group and arresting 
one participant. About six others were hurt as they fled.

There are also many, many organizers from peasant groups that continue to 
be targeted in their home town and have been forced to flee to the capital 
to escape persecution. Some are followed all the way to Port-au-Prince, 
hunted down and shot or arrested, while others are able to survive by 
sleeping in different homes every night. Human rights groups estimate 
there are 300,000 "internal refugees" in the country, living away from 
their homes, families and work.

Refugees Targeted

In its continued attempt to halt the telling flow of fleeing "boat people" 
refugees, the army and its assistants are also hunting down would-be 
refugees and arresting many returned by U.S. authorities.

On July 8 at 11 p.m. soldiers fired on a boat carrying 400 people near 
Cap-Haitian, causing people to panic and overturn the boat. At least 35 
people died and many more were arrested and beaten. 

Soldiers in the north are also beating anyone they find building boats 
or working near the water. "Canoe-paddlers, fishermen, fish-sellers are 
all being attacked on the pretext that they are organizing secret 
voyages," said a local correspondent. "Many people have been forced into 
hiding because there are rumors they might be arrested."

The army has also been arresting people returned to Haiti.  On July 6, 
six refugees were arrested on the wharf for arranging a "clandestine 
voyage," the National Coalition for Haitian Refugees said on July 25.

NCHR said the army has arrested 34 refugees out of the 2,252 repatriated 
between July 11 and July 22. Five are still in prison.

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