Photos, Tom Luce For slide show on Aug. 21 destruction click HERE
Family members
of victims testify about the machete murders at the soccer game.
More family members testify. Upwards to 50 victims have been reported.
High school, built by Aristide government as a public school in Gran Ravin, is now empty. Community members met here.
View of harbor from Gran Ravin.
Mother of victim testifies.
One wall of
the Gran Ravine rises up behind the high school.
School I.D. of a young 23 year old man, one of the victims of the massacre.
by Tom Luce, Pres. Hurah, Inc. (Human Rights Accompaniment in Haiti) http://hurah.org, 510-229-3571 president@hurah.org Berkeley, California
(Note by Tom Luce, Sept 1, 2005 This write-up was originally published on the HaitiAction website and has now been updated to reflect further information with regard to the UN Role. Click here to see a slide show documenting the process--non-violent, non-partisan and non ideological that AUMOHD and Hurah followed in obtaining the facts of this entire case. This includes an update on the possible role of the couple of UN soldiers who were quite distant from the massacre site doing traffic control. Elsewhere the UN has been reported as having participated in the massacre. In fact I was present in Grand Ravine shortly after the massacre and was witness to the UN police and troops who helped investigate and protect the residents of Grand Ravine when the Haitian police were still out of control.)
Dredging up fearsome memories of days thought to have gone by forever, eyewitnesses here in Port-Au-Prince have portrayed an unbelievable massacre-by-machete/hatchet rampage by red-shirted killers, backed up by the Haitian National Police (PNH), of up to 50 victims on Aug. 20 at a soccer field in Martissant. This summary, extra-legal execution was unlike other killings in July in Bel Air and Solino earlier this month described as "lynchings". This time the killings were done in plain daylight in front of, and involving 5000 soccer fans, an incredibly bold assault by Haitian police and their civilian accomplices. Witnesses report the "victims" in Saturday's massacre, were all called bandits, "Lavalas" scum (Rat pa caca), by their killers. However the witnesses say the victims were innocent. Instead the civilian killers were identified by name as bandits.
Witnesses reported that there were UN soldiers in the area and that the police lied to the UN troops as they went to the soccer game saying that they were going to respond to a disturbance and would call them (the UN troops) if they needed back up. The UN soldiers were only a few stationed at a traffic checkpoint not within sight of the soccer stadium. Investigators have asked for a report from the UN as to what these soldiers knew about the massacre.
Eyewitnesses described to a group of human rights agents this super t.v. drama styled event. As fans were being entertained during one of the breaks in the soccer game--highly attended because national league players had joined the local teams--a group of police and men wearing red tee shirts and head bands entered the playing field and took over the microphone from the announcer. The people in the crowd at first thought that this was a friendly show of security by the police. But that idea was immediately dashed when the red shirt announcer stopped the music being played by the DJ and then demanded everyone to lay on the ground. A shot was fired into the air and people began a panicked response. Some tried to run away, some tried scaling the walls to escape and several of these were shot. Others tried running into the adjoining rooms of the stadium and later were found hacked to death. The red shirts, backed up by the police began demanding specific individuals lying on the ground if they were affiliated with Aristide, asking for confirmation from others whether these people were "bandits". Then without mercy these red shirts either hacked their victims to death or hacked them and then had their victims shot by the police. According to eyewitnesses and the family members of the victims interviewed today, the victims of the executioners were innocent people and were attacked only because they were allegedly Lavalas supporters.
The red shirts were equipped with machetes and hatchets that were distributed, according to witnesses, by the police at the Martissant police station. These same civilians who appeared in red shirts and head bands at the soccer game, armed with machetes were recognized by people in the area as the same people who at least a month previously were thrown out of the area as trouble makers among whom were some prison escapees and thieves. Some of these executioners were named by witnesses: Georges Jean Yves, Gérard, aka, Gwo l'Ombril (Big Belly Button), ...lifet aka TÍte Calé (Shaved Head), Ti Clody, Rudy, JoÎl, Eddy, Apoupann aka Colonel, Ronald Toussaint, Kiki , Rocky Rambo, and Cliska. The chief of police of Martissant was also implicated in the operation by the witnesses and according to the witnesses threatened to come after them and "wipe them out the next day."
On Sunday, Aug. 21 the same red shirts, accompanied by the police, invaded residential areas and burned more than four houses alleged to be inhabited by Lavalas supporters. They also severely damaged an electricity transformer in the area. They also damaged several other houses.
See follow-up article at "Fascist Police State Surfaces In Haiti"