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Author: Gottson Pierre
P-au-P., July 23, 2024 (AlterPresse) – On the night of July 23, 2024, the cries for justice of the farmers of Jean Labelle (Northwest), massacred 37 years ago (1987), no longer echoed.
Let the truth come out, let the perpetrators be held accountable for their crimes and punished, they declared in a press release sent to AlterPresse. As they do tirelessly every year, when this is not a meeting, a parade, etc.
Between 23 and 27 July 1987, some 139 peasants (official figures provided by the then National Council of Government/Cng) were killed by soldiers, former members of Duvalier militias and large landowners.
A major peasant movement, the Tèt ansanm, takes root in Jean Labelle and continues to challenge the status quo. The social conscience of the peasants is emerging.
There are growing voices supporting the country’s commitment to equitable and sustainable development, access to land, building agricultural infrastructure, access to credit, etc.
139 lives lost in indifference. 37 years of silence on justice.
La Saline, a symbol of hope?
The order issued by investigating judge Jean Wilner Morin into the massacre in La Saline, a district north of the capital, may be a sign of hope.
On the night of November 12-13, 2018, militants armed with automatic weapons, fists and bladed weapons attacked residents of several neighborhoods in Salt Field, killing dozens of people, burning several houses, and raping many women and girls.
No fewer than 85 victims are named in the order published last week. Nearly six years after the massacre, the legal truth is known.
Here’s the story:
“Individually, members of armed gangs were mostly sponsored by politicians in power at the time, with the goal of eliminating another gang, first of all the large public market of the Croix des Bossale that controlled the saltworks, but among other tasks was to prevent rival gangs from organizing anti-government demonstrations to the benefit of the political opposition to make money.
“The La Salin massacre stemmed from a political conflict between gangs that were close to power at the time and gangs that claimed to be the political opposition.”
“The Central Directive of the Judicial Police reports in its report nearly 75 complaints from victims of what is known as the La Salin massacre. The parents of several victims who filed complaints with the Central Direction of the Judicial Police and those who were heard at the Investigative Office accuse the Haitian National Police of laxity; for some, the police will be forced not to provide assistance to the residents of La Salin who are targeted by armed bandits. »
“According to statements by the victims and their next of kin and police reports, the cause of the Salt Fields massacre was that politicians of all levels and types encouraged and exploited the expansion of the gangs in accordance with their own policies. These politicians were mostly opposition activists or government officials, sometimes working through corrupt current or former police officers…”
This is what led to the La Salleen massacre, according to the conclusions of the judicial investigation. In addition to the three deceased defendants (Grégory Antoine (also known as Ti Greg), Alectis Serge (also known as Ti Junior) and Andris Iscar), 30 other people have been indicted.
They are: “Hervé Barthélémy Bonheur or Léonel Altona (alias Bout Jeanjean, Pouchon Jean, Nelson Mikelson, Josué François, Bergelin Etienne, Emanus Charles, Jameson Pierre, Policar Felanto, Kalison Rosiclair, Engy Exavier, Pyram (alias Félix Toumber one), Chery Christ- Roi aka Chrislat, Cerizier Jimmy aka Barbecue, Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, Fednel Monchéry, Manel Lundy, Sensiny Saint-Clair, Sadrac Brice, Manesse Gay, Eddyson Sony Laforest, Pierre Richard St-Fort, Polesse Dossous, Pierre Michel alias Blanc piman machann bal, Wilson Alfred (alias Grenn), Max Dolph Desir, Bolliard Junior Alexis, Gerda Petidor, Cado Charles, Dahana Jean Michel and Pierre Léon Saint Remy».
In criminal court, without the assistance of a jury, they must answer: “illegal possession of a firearm, assassination, attempted assassination, armed robbery, arson, kidnapping and seizure, and criminal conspiracy.”
We must focus on three specific cases: Jimmy Cherissier (alias BBQ), former police officer turned gang leader, Fiedner Moncheri, former Minister of the Interior, and Pierre Richard Duplan, former deputy to the Western Executive.
“According to statements from Ti Joel and survivors of the massacre, former police officers Jimmy Cherizzi alias BBQ and Gregory Antoine alias Ti Greg, both along with other saltwater bandits, killed men, women and children during the catastrophic night of November 12-13, 2018.”
“On July 25, 2023, Rita Dieujuste, who heard the complaint in the Office of Investigation regarding the events in La Salleen, explicitly declared that she saw Jimmy Cherizier, together with bandits in police uniforms, sowing the seeds of death among peaceful citizens in La Salleen.”
About Fednel Monchery: “At the investigation office, the victim, Ms. Rita Dieujuste, claimed in the presence of her lawyer that she had been in a car in the area of the Saltworks with the logo of the Ministry of the Interior and local authorities”.
“Ms. Rita Dieueuste insists in her statement that she saw Fernel Monchery, former director of the Ministry of the Interior, distributing weapons to gang members in the Saltworks area in the company of Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, the perpetrator of the Saltworks massacre.
“Mr Ernst Leger, who was also a victim who lost a child, claims to have met Fidenel Moncheri at the Saltworks before the massacre, and that the latter, together with the gang leader, planned these criminal acts, which resulted in the deaths of dozens of local residents of the Saltworks”.
“The accused has been served with a summons to appear in court to present his version of the facts but he preferred to send a handwritten letter to the judge asking him to defer the investigation of the case.”
As for Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan: he “appeared as a defendant in the investigation room and categorically denied all the charges against him, declaring instead that he had heard and read about the Lasalin massacre in the press.
“Two victims of the massacre claimed during a confrontation in the investigation office that they had seen with their own eyes the former deputies of the department distributing weapons to the leaders of the Saltworks gang. (…) During the confrontation, the victims repeated, without being questioned and in the presence of the accused, the same version denied by Joseph Pierre Richard Duplan, without providing any details and precise information about where he was on the date and time of the victims’ reports.
“The defendant claimed that he did not remember his occupation, or at least where he was when the victim claimed to have seen him with the Saltworks gang leader distributing weapons and large sums of money to carry out the massacre.
Return of Jean Labelle: Similar Operation Methods
When we look back at Jean Rabel 37 years ago, we can observe that the motivations and methods of operation were similar, based on economic and political reasons.
In a press release on the 37th anniversary of the massacre, Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan said, “Tetansanm, Janrabel and its allies, Bitasyon Caritas and Bochan Missions in Port-de-Paix and Bombardopolis, peasant groups and missionary teams carried out socio-political and cultural-economic projects in the North-West Province in the 1970s and 1980s. It was a very terrible alternative project.”
For their part, “the sworn enemies of the Haitian people are plotting counterattacks and brutal attacks as part of a policy of domination and violent aggression.”
“Small farmers demand that the state be able to act on the means of production to allow them and the peasants to have access to good farmland, state land, irrigation canals (…) so that the peasants can produce more, increase productivity, protect national agricultural production, and protect the country from the invasion of foreign products and food aid.”
The small farmers of Janrabel, Mahotière and Bochan demand “a state that can provide its people with hospitals, pharmacies, laboratories, medicines and adequate personnel, as well as the necessary and qualified medical infrastructure; primary, secondary and vocational schools and free public universities for young people.”
Tèt Kole noted that these were the demands made by farmers’ associations “when they rose up in the Northwest against market taxes, disastrous grain and the section chief system.”
Among other things, the group reported that a month before the murder, on June 14, 1987, “the president of the National Government Council (Cng), General Henri Namphy, accompanied by Alphonse Jean Duvalier, a supporter of the dictatorship in Grand Macut, went to Jean Labelle to boost the morale of the armed forces in the presence of the then presidential candidate, “Eternal”.
After the events of Bloody Thursday, July 23, 1987, Nicol Poitevien, a great monarch and landowner in the region, claimed responsibility and boasted of “murdering 1,042 communists”. Nicol Poitevien was arrested in connection with the massacre during the presidency of René Préval and was subsequently released. Other alleged perpetrators and accomplices were also released.
In fact, there has been no real investigation into the crimes committed in Jean-Labelle on July 23, 1987. Like most files kept in judicial drawers over the past decades, this investigation is still ongoing. However, there is still a lot to do. Because so many massacres took place across the country during a period of unrest, riots and socio-political mobilization before and after the fall of the brutal Duvalier dictatorship on February 7, 1986.
Therefore, the judicial truth is known in La Salin, and there is no need to issue a verdict of conviction. Nevertheless, it is a first! But the road to attacking the bastion of impunity may still be long. (GP April 23, 2024 at 10:00 pm)
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