Assaults on women in their homes often were accompanied by the destruction of the house and personal belongings and assaults on other family members. Such search and destroy missions were carried out by the military, often with the assistance of FRAPH and other armed groups.
Previous to Aristide's return, no meaningful distinction existed between the military and the police. Both forces arrested citizens for common offenses as well as offenses against the state. Notes one expert on the Haitian military:
. . . in Haiti the military forces are the police . . . . Even in major cities such as Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien the police departments function as units of the army. In the vast majority of Haitian cities and villages, the military basically has a police function.69
The army thus maintained control of the investigatory and enforcement aspects of the justice system.
An attack on August 14, 1993 demonstrates how the military—whether soldiers or police—and its civilian allies worked together. Two soldiers, one policeman, and two attachés, all armed with pistols and rifles, broke down the front door of M.B.'s home and shot their way through the house as M.B. and her family slept. The men were looking for her father-in-law, who was constantly seen around the neighborhood discussing how much he anticipated Aristide's return. When they were unable to find him, they robbed his family, shot his twenty-three-month-old granddaughter, attempted to rape his daughter-in-law, M.B., and molested her cousin. M.B. told us:
My mother-in-law was downstairs sleeping with S.M., the baby who died. She got up and tried to warn us that there were intruders in the house. While she did this, the men entered the room where S., my husband's other child, and my cousin were sleeping. My cousin was seventeen and they tried to rape her, but they realized she had her period and left her alone. They were screaming, "Where is the old man?" One of the armed civilians put a gun across my cousin's legs and molested her. He put his hands under her gown and felt her breasts, and rubbed his hands over her stomach and thighs.70
The soldiers and attachés then ransacked M.B.'s house, terrorized her family with threats, called them "Lavalas,"71 slapped and beat her and threatened to shoot her husband. The soldiers and attachés emptied out sacks of flour and sugar from the family's store and filled them with radios and other items from the house. Although only two of the men wore uniforms, M.B. recognized another in civilian dress as a local policeman. M.B. told us:
I recognized the guy who was blocking the door of the bedroom, the one who pointed the gun at my husband. He was a policeman from the neighborhood and would buy goods from our little store. Although that night he was dressed in civilian clothes. They made me accompany them to the gate to let them out. By then it was about 4:00 a.m. or so. Once we arrived at the gate, one of the ones in uniform made me take off my underwear and was going to rape me. Luckily, I had my menstruation.
On the way out, the men warned M.B., "We know your father-in-law likes to talk about JBA. If Aristide comes back, we know you will seek revenge, but we will come back for you first."72
On August 15, a day after the baby's murder and the other assaults, M.B. and her family left their home and went into hiding, staying at different times with various family members. M.B. explained her reluctance to report the assaults to the police:
We never went to the police. There would have been no use doing this. It would just have resulted in more hardship and terror for the family, and we were all too shocked by my daughter's death and everything else that happened. Wewere more concerned with our safety and with preventing further problems.
M.B. declined to pursue an investigation because it would have been an "investigation involving the police basically investigating themselves, and that would only mean more bad news for me and my family."73
Given the overt and frequent involvement of law enforcement officials in rape and other forms of abuse, individual Haitians had nowhere to turn for help when they were attacked or when they witnessed attacks upon others. During our investigation, we obtained the following eyewitness testimony:
As my friend and I were returning to our hotel one night in late January 1994, we heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs. We stopped and looked over to where the sound was coming from and saw a mixture of about eight to ten armed civilians and police milling near a car and not responding to the screams. We did not approach the car. These were armed men and police. I felt incapable of doing anything. I could not see well into the car, but the screams were piercing, and it looked like there were at least two uniformed policemen inside the car raping a woman. I did not report what happened to the police. What would have been the use? They were the ones responsible. I can't even imagine what eventually happened to that woman.74
The October 1993 report on human rights in Haiti by the UN/OAS civilian mission includes several cases of soldiers raping women with impunity:
· On June 10, a thirteen-year-old girl was raped by a corporal at the military post of Bayeux, Department of the North.
· On July 24, a group of twenty armed men, some in uniform, surrounded the house of a Cité Soleil grass roots activist who was in hiding. Three went in and raped and threatened his wife.
· A sixteen-year-old girl was raped by a soldier from the barracks of Fort Liberté at Dérec, Department of the Northeast.75
69 Michel S. Laguerre, The Military and Society in Haiti (Knoxville, TN: The University of Tennessee Press, 1993), p. 125.
70 Interview, Port-au-Prince, February 14, 1994.
71 Lavalas is the Creole word meaning "flood" or "landslide"; as used colloquially, it refers to the broad-based popular movement that elected President Aristide.
72 "JBA" is a popularly-used nickname for President Aristide.
73 Interview, Port-au-Prince, February 14, 1994.
74 Interview with foreigner who spoke on the condition of anonymity, Port-au-Prince, February 15, 1994.
75 UN/OAS International Civilian Mission in Haiti, Report on the Situation of Democracy and Human Rights in Haiti, A/48/532, October 25, 1993, p. 18.
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