Adopted at the International Association of Democratic Lawyers Bureau Meeting in Cochin, India
December 19 and 20, 2006
Considering the political events that transpired in Haiti in the course of the year 2003, which led to the violent death of numerous Haitian citizens, particularly among the members and supporters of the Fanmi Lavalas political party;
Considering that these political events culminated on February 29, 2004, with the reversal of the democratic process by the forced ouster and exile of the democratically-elected President;
Considering the several reports, each more alarming than the next, from national human rights organizations such as the National Commission for Justice and Peace, documenting innumerable cases of assassination of civilians following the coup d’état of February 29, 2004;
Considering the different reports on the situation in Haiti between February 29, 2004 and May 15, 2006 resulting from credible and impartial investigations, for example:
The study published in the British medical journal, the Lancet, on August 31, 2006, documenting 8,000 murders in Port-au-Prince during the twenty months following the coup d’état;
The report titled “Haiti, Human Rights Investigation, November, 11-21, 2004” resulting from an investigation from the Center for the Study of Human Rights at the University of Miami, directed by lawyer and investigator Thomas Griffin;
The two reports by delegations from the National Lawyers Guild (U.S.A.), investigating the human rights situation in Haiti on March 29-April 4, 2004 and April 12-19, 2004;
The different reports and recommendations of Amnesty International, among them that of November 11, 2004 titled “Haiti: Amnesty International demands Haiti’s transitional government to create an independent commission of enquiry into summary executions attributed to members of the Haitian National Police;”
The report from Harvard Law School and the Centro de Justicia Global documenting human rights violation by UN troops: “Keeping the Peace in Haiti, March 2005”;
The report on the human rights situation in Haiti, presented June 5, 2005 by Attorney Bill Quigley, Professor of Law at Loyola New Orleans Law School, to the XVIth Congress of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers in Paris;
The Preliminary Report of the Commission of Inquiry of the International Tribunal on Haiti, October 6-11, 2005; and
The demand of the National Lawyers Guild to the Haitian authorities for the release of all the political prisoners remaining from the Interim Government of Haiti, dated October 26, 2006.
Considering that President René Préval, once he was elected as President of the Republic, peremptorily recognized, during a voyage to Paris, the existence of political prisoners in Haiti, a situation that constitutes a heavy inheritance for a presidency that desires to govern democratically, one which it should throw off;
The Bureau of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, meeting in Kochi, India, on December 19th and 20th, alarmed by the persistent impunity in Haiti, strongly urges the constitutional government of President René Préval and Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis to:
Take urgent action leading to the immediate and unconditional liberation of all of Haiti’s political prisoners;
Establish as soon as possible a National Commission for Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations for the victims of the two years of the brutal Interim Government of Haiti put in place by the U.S., France and Canada following the coup d’état of February 29, 2004.
