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STOP JUNGLE JUSTICE
By Sam Okello
ARCUP Human Rights Coordinator
of man rights in most develop- ing countries seems to be the order of the day. To the rest of the world such injustice re- mains one of the most un-
Violation hu-
fortunate inconveniences of
modern life.
Take for instance a coun- try such as Haiti: last year Canadians witnessed TV pic- tures of the abuse of human rights by the Haitian iary government. typically hot,
mil- It was a dry morning in Haiti when popular dis-
by Vivian Huizenga
DIDN’T YOU FEEL good when you heard that a professor at our university was actively working on the toxic mussel problem? I sure was! I was elated thinking our university housed, hot on the trail, brainy professors.
In reality, Prof. Hanic, a marine botanist in our sci-
content about the military’s brutal rule turned to ugly ri- ots. To many people this was not only a mystery but also a nightmare,
The Haitian environment had turned gov- ernment soldiers into sadists. They liked blood. Gruesome sights did not’ revoke the ac- tions of government soldiers. TV pictures depicted untold suffering of civilians. Even the newspapers served read- ers with gore at the breakfast table. It could be a head- less body, a bodyless head or mutilated body printed on the front page where one couldn’t miss it.
The military junta had brought this brutality into its At the shout of “Ton- (Haitian cret police), a suspect would be either detained, shot to death or grabbed and have a car tire hung around his neck like a necklace and set ablaze. The crowd would cheer.
laws.
ton Macout” se-
The victims tortured in this hostile en- vironment were branded ter- rorists or murderers by their captors. Perhaps these vic- tims had nothing to do with politics in the Haitian gov- ernment. It could be that they were simply seeking so-
cial change.
During the Christmas
holidays, I spoke to eyewit- nesses who told me that the victims came from humble
beginnings; most of them came from the proletariat middle-class. They went to church regularly, and held university degrees. The bot- tom line is that the victims were neither terrorists nor murderers as alleged by their captors; but they became subject to every imaginable piece of incriminating allega- tion.
As a result, the govern- ment claimed that the vic- tims were guilty of charges of treason and the victims were guilty of charges of trea- son and the result was ei- ther cruel torture, life im- prisonment or captial pun- ishment. In the govern- ment’s zeal to smear all op- ponents as traitors to the country, it often got carried away and forgot to respect human rights.
What the Haitian miliary govern- ment couldn’t win through logical arguement, it wanted to win through intimidation and blackmail. Local peo- ple orchestrated a chorus of angry protest at the attroc- ities committed. Despite this, the government turned a deaf ear. The local people
then argued for the removal
Mussels and other goings on
cold, soggy and a tired man af-
ence department was
ter having spent an entire night waiting while Depart- ment of Fisheries (Federal and Provincial) technicians made 35 trips to get 2000 gallons of water out of the Cardigan River to Halifax before an impending storm.
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Wednesday, December 3, Prof. Hanic received a call from the Dept. of Fisheries who were looking for a phyto plankton net. Prof. Hanic got hold of a boat owned by Russel Dockendorf and af- ter pushing and shoving for
2 hours finally got out into ©
open water. Prof. Hanic had his microscope aboard and could see an abundance of di- atoms, a type of plankton, in the water samples right away.
The crew tested the wa- ter all along the Cardigan River every 1/2 mile. Prof. Hanic said he even noticed the water looked strange on the surface. It was calm and looked as if there was a film of soap on the surface which swirled around in patterns. These were the thick concen- trations of diatoms.
In a beaker held up to the light one could actually see the beauties— chains up to 16 cells long, overlapped
SPage (QS
——— ———
\
of what one would call jun. |
gle justice. It was this jungle |
justice, this unprecedented terror that foreign journal. ists were encouraged to re. port on.
For many in the Western |
world, such violence is un- believable, a forgotten topic, If what we see on American and Canadian TV can be be. lieved, then the Haitian mili- tary junta wants to put tires around the necks of their vic- tims. Government soldiers prefer to publicly stone their targets to death. For this reason human rights abuse in Haiti is shocking.
That, to me, is a way of attempting to clean the so- ciety by restoring the rule of the jungle. A civilized society should be governed by the rule of law. Until the military government in Haiti acknowledges the rule of law, suffering remains to all Haitians.
Now that the pblic is ex- pecting new elections later this month, it is time to en- force the rule of law and re- spect human rights. Due to past the Haitian government should
experiences,
not repeat the same mis- takes. Leaders should refrain from “crazy” things such as
incompetence, criminal of- fences, political naivety and infectiveness. ‘
a
"They're both equally as effective, but this bottle is a nicer colour..."
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and thin as a spider’s web thread. These diatom chains actually reflected light simi- lar to a spider’s web.
The waters around Boughton Island and Murray River exhibited the same di-.. atom, called Nitzschia, but. less in concentration. It took 12 hours to extract the first sample which was then frozen and sent to Ottawa.
‘ There the sample ™ tested on a’mouse which sul sequently died.in 40 minv"
" © with he classic symptom!
scratching and boxing of t! form of poison. Now it b came urgent to get samp! while the beauties were |
- bloom (full force).
Tuesday, December §' 4:00pm, the department Fisheries had 2 alternat!
Cont. on page 12