In a Montreal press conference on January 21, Mario Joseph—who the New
York Times has referred to as “Haiti’s most prominent human rights
lawyer”—spoke about the legal case for the prosecution of Jean-Claude
Duvalier for crimes against humanity.
Joseph is the manager of the Port-au-Prince-based Bureau des Avocats
Internationaux (BAI), which, along with the Institute for Justice and
Democracy In Haiti, has compiled extensive evidence of Duvalier’s
abuses--available at http://ijdh.org/
[For complete release features, please see source at CHAN here.]
In 2000, Joseph spearheaded the prosecution of Haiti’s Raboteau
Massacre trial, which was one of the most significant human rights cases
anywhere in the Western Hemisphere. And at today’s press conference, he
announced that the BAI is ready to accept testimony from victims of
Duvalier’s regime—including those living in Quebec and Canada—who he
urged to come forward as witnesses to Duvalier's abuses.
Joseph stated that he wants to see a “rupture from impunity” in Haiti.
Part of the underlying problem, according to Joseph, has been the role
of the international community, including the Canadian government, which
has been heavily involved in recent years in Haiti’s justice system.
He criticized Canada and other governments for helping bring about the
current political crisis in Haiti, by backing an election before Haiti’s
electoral list had been revised to account for the deaths of more than
two thousand people following the January 12, 2010 earthquake. In the
context of President Rene Preval’s hand-selected electoral council’s
decision to bar twelve political parties from participation in the
election, and the cholera epidemic, Joseph and many other human rights
advocates had called for the November 28, 2010 Haitian elections to be
put off.
“Canada understands democratic values, but why would it support a
government that does not respect the constitution?” he stated.
He also cited Canada, the U.S., and France’s role in a 2004 coup d’etat
against a democratically elected Haitian government that had made some
progress in prosecutions of human rights offenders as a contributing
factor in the present climate of impunity in Haiti.
Fifty human rights groups from around the world yesterday joined BAI’s
calls for justice for Duvalier’s victims, issuing a joint statement
urging the Haitian government to investigate and prosecute “Baby Doc.”
YOu can read the statement here.
The press conference was organized by the Montreal-Haiti Solidarity
Committee, a group founded after the January 12, 2010 earthquake in
Haiti to build solidarity with the Haitian grassroots organizations who
are pushing for more inclusive, accountable and democratic recovery
efforts.
