Hearing Investigating Human Rights Abuses in Haiti and Role of UN Mission and OAS Member States

The Inter-American Commission for Human Rights (IACHR) will hold a general interest hearing on March 3, 2006 to examine economic and social rights violations in Haiti. The hearing will include testimony from members of the Haiti-based Zanmi Lasante (Partners in Health www.pih.org), The Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights (www.rfkmemorial.org) and New York University School of Law International Human Rights Clinic.

The groups will present testimony demonstrating gross human rights violations against the Haitian people (focusing on the rights to health, water and food) since the arrival of the United Nations Stabilization Mission to Haiti (MINUSTAH). They will highlight the international human rights obligations of Organization of American States (OAS) Member States. MINUSTAH is primarily staffed by OAS member states with Brazil leading the mission.

“We, as Haitians, know that we have rights to health, to food, to water, to life. But these rights are being violated every day. We are asking the OAS to finally recognize our rights and to let its Members know exactly what their responsibilities are to the Haitian people,” asserted Loune Viaud, Director of Strategic Planning and Operations of Zanmi Lasante and recipient of the 2002 RFK Memorial Human Rights Award.

Haiti is the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere. It has the highest HIV prevalence rate outside of Sub-Saharan Africa. Haiti shares, together with Afghanistan and Somalia, the worst daily caloric deficit per inhabitant in the world (460 kcal / day).

“The international community has acted recklessly in Haiti for years without any accountability, ” says Dr. Paul Farmer, Medical Director at Zanmi Lasante. “MINUSTAH, which has a greater annual budget than the entire nation of Haiti, must share responsibility for the human rights violations that have been occurring under its watch. Now, as a popularly elected government prepares to take office in Haiti, the international community must acknowledge its responsibility and redirect its resources to helping the Haitian people and their elected leaders assert and attain their rights.”

Testimonies will lay out the human rights obligations of OAS Members and urge the OAS to actively engage in ending these violations. They will particularly focus on the UN intervention, which began its mandate in June 2004. The groups will also ask the Commission to visit Haiti to examine the human rights violations currently occurring.

“Member States and UN bureaucrats think human rights law doesn't apply when organizing their interventions”, says Todd Howland, former UN human rights official currently serving as Director of the RFK Memorial Center for Human Rights. “Good intentions are not enough. UN Member States who intervene in a country like Haiti must be held accountable if their actions do not promote human rights.”

The hearing will take place at the location below on March 3rd 2006 at 3pm and is open to the press.

Location:
Padilha Vidal Room B, GSB Building of the Organization of American States
1889 F. St, NW
Washington, DC 20006

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Committed to achieving Robert Kennedy’s goal of a more peaceful and just world, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights is a non-profit non-governmental organization that engages in long-term partnerships with activists who win the RFK Human Rights Award. The Center has 36 laureate partners in 21 countries and advocates for their social justice goals using a broad array of innovative tools.