Violence continues in Haiti and it is particularly ugly:
About 20 people died in clashes between rival gangs fighting a turf war in one of the Haitian capital's violent slums, a senior police official said on Friday.
Michael Lucius, director of the judicial police, said the bloodletting occurred Thursday night and early Friday in the Martissant neighbourhood of Port-au-Prince, where the victims died of gunshot wounds or were hacked to death with machetes. [My emphasis]
So, when did Haiti develop gangs that hacked people to death with machetes?
One of the armed groups engaged in the violence, known as"Lame Ti Manchet", Haitian creole for Small Machetes Army, was formed over the past 1-1/2 years under the interim administration that replaced former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted in a 2004 revolt.
The group is widely believed to have cooperated at times with elements of the Haitian police in crackdowns on groups loyal to Aristide in Martissant.
I guess the name Tontons Macoutes must be trademarked. Gerard Latortue's feckless enforcement of the law led to this.
There is one bit of Haiti-related good news:
An elusive former strongman from Haiti, accused of sanctioning rape to silence dissent there in the early 1990s, has been arrested in a mortgage fraud scheme on Long Island, authorities said.
Emmanuel "Toto" Constant, 49, was scheduled to be arraigned Friday on charges of grand larceny, forgery and falsifying business records, said Robert Clifford, spokesman for the Suffolk County district attorney.
The indictment accuses Constant and five co-defendants of defrauding a bank out of more than $1 million.
The article, however, contains this bit of nonsense:
In 1994, Constant slipped into the United States. He has been living in exile in New York, reportedly sometimes staying at the home of an aunt while working as a mortgage broker.
Despite a 1995 deportation order, he has been allowed to remain because Haiti's judicial system hasn't stabilized enough to ensure a fair trial. [My emphasis]
Pure poppycock. Many Haitians, with legitimate claims of persecution are deported regularly back to Haiti, the sole reason is that apparently they lack Toto Constant's political juice.
I wrote about Constant back in 2003. It's worth quoting again what Human Rights Watch said about Constant at around the same time:
EMMANUEL "TOTO" CONSTANT, the leader of Haiti's "FRAPH" death squad who now lives in New York, is wanted by Haitian prosecutors to face charges of murder, torture and arson carried out during Cedrás' de facto rule. He was also convicted in absentia for the Raboteau massacre. Constant has admitted to receiving regular payments and encouragement from the CIA while he built his terror network. When Aristide was restored to power, Constant was ordered to appear in court, but he fled to the United States where he was arrested in March 1995. U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher, calling FRAPH "an illegitimate paramilitary organization whose members were responsible for numerous human rights violations in Haiti," asked for his immediate deportation to Haiti. Constant was instead released from custody pursuant to a secret agreement between the U.S. government and Constant - revealed by the Baltimore Sun - which would allow the death squad leader to "self-deport" at any time to a third country of his choice, effectively allowing him to escape justice in Haiti, which has sought his extradition.
The Clinton administration, yes the Clinton adminstration, should own up as to why Constant was allowed to stay in the US and the Bush administration should answer why he wasn't sent back on their watch. While I'm glad that he was arrested, I find it disturbing that fraud is what got him behind bars here as opposed to rapes and murders that he was accused of in Haiti.
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