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Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Human Rights Investigator

JEB SPRAGUE & JOE EMESBERGER | 12.09.2006 00:32 | Analysis | Globalisation | Social Struggles | World

"You are a dog ... you should die. We are going to necklace you," whispered a British-accented caller into the phone. It was the latest in a round of death threats that Athena Kolbe, Human Rights Investigator and Master's level social worker at Wayne State University, had received. According to police officials, Kolbe first began receiving threatening calls at home and on her cell phone at 4:00 AM on the morning of Monday September 4.

Kolbe, who co-coordinated a human rights study carried out in late 2005 by the Wayne State University School of Social Work with Dr. Royce Hutson, led a team of twelve Haitian interviewers in surveying 1260 randomly selected households in the greater Port-au-Prince area. The Haitian researchers interviewed Port-au-Prince residents about their experiences with human rights abuses since the installation of Gerald Latortue as interim Prime Minister following the violent overthrow of Haiti's elected President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Lancet article titled "Human Rights Abuse and Other Criminal Violations in Port-au-Prince Haiti: A Random Survey of Households" exposes massive human rights violations in Haiti, under the foreign-installed interim government of Gerald Latortue. It estimates that 8000 persons were murdered and approximately 35000 sexually assaulted in the greater Port-au-Prince area between February 2004 and December 2005. More than 90% percent of the sexual assaults reported in the study-involved penetration, explained the authors. The study first became public knowledge on August 30 when Pacifica Radio's Flashpoints aired an interview with Kolbe and Royce discussing the findings of the survey. It has stirred controversy ever since.

Days after an interview with Flashpoints' Dennis Bernstein, Charles Arthur, president of the UK's Haiti Support Group, denounced Kolbe as a "pro-Lavalas Family journalist" implying that Kolbe manipulated the survey findings. Articles about the study were quickly published in the Guardian and the Toronto Globe and Mail in which Charles Arthur was prominently quoted, but much remained unexplored --most conspicuously the findings of the study--but also what Kolbe has had to endure since the study was published.

It was her volunteer service in 1995 with Lafanmi Selavi, an orphanage for street children and child domestic servants in Port-au-Prince which Arthur claimed makes Kolbe too"biased" to conduct research. Aristide founded the orphanage when he was a parish priest ten years prior. Kolbe met Aristide and says she was "impressed with commitment to promoting the idea that children are people who need to be loved, respected and valued." Kolbe volunteered in several orphanages during postings in Haiti, Croatia and Israel.

Kolbe formerly wrote for the Pacific News Service writing under the name Lyn Duff (her mother's maiden name), publishing a smattering of articles during the next ten years about the experiences of marginalized Haitians including rape survivors, homeless children, factory workers, child laborers, and human rights victims. It was her experiences in Haiti and other developing countries that Kolbe says motivated her to return to university to peruse an academic career. Kolbe's co-author in the study is Royce Hutson, a former doctoral fellow at the Madison, Wisconsin-based Institute for Research on Poverty and a current associate professor of social work at Wayne State University.

Kolbe says, "I felt that in academia I could have a greater impact on developing ideas and policies which would help promote justice and healing for human rights victims," explaining that advocating for social justice is an essential tenet of the National Association of Social Worker's code of ethics. When starting her studies in late 2004 Kolbe decided to go by her father's surname rather than the hyphenated name she had been using previously. That decision, she says, was to avoid persecution for her sexual orientation, as she had previously been the subject of media reports about discriminatory treatment of gay youth.

In response to Arthur's allegations of "bias", Kolbe replies, "I am in no way a Lavalas propagandist as Arthur implies. Just because I wrote about Haiti and do not believe Aristide was a dictator, that does not make me Fanmi Lavalas. That is ridiculous," she said. "This survey was conducted fairly and accurately. The researchers conducted themselves without bias and interviewed and gathered information from 1260 randomly selected homes. To insinuate that the report is misleading is to allege a grand conspiracy involving dozens of people including our university's ethics committee which had full knowledge of my past history in Haiti and had no problem with it when they approved our research protocols."

A Haitian resident of London, who wishes to remain anonymous due to the death threats, explains that on Sept. 2 Charles Arthur told her and several other people that "We need to find this woman?s phone number so people can contact her and complain to her directly." The following day a flyer emblazed with Kolbe's photo was released titled "Who is Athena Kolbe?" Respond to Fanmi Lavalas Propaganda!!!!" Another witness, wishing to go unnamed due to the fear of being targeted, explains that Arthur was responsible for distributing the fliers. The flyer's text is identical to portions of Arthur's letter to the Lancet, which he posted online. It ends by encouraging people to "ask her why she is hiding her affiliation with Fanmi Lavalas" and gives Kolbe's phone numbers, email address, home address, and the address and phone number of her family members.

The calls began the next day, Kolbe explains, as she received over a dozen. One caller with a "clearly Haitian accent" called her a "Lavalas chimere" saying, "Do you know what we do to Lavalas chimere? You deserve to die painfully. We know where you are. We know who you are." In a later call she was threatened with rape, evisceration and death, said a police official. The harassment is being investigated by the FBI who have given the Wayne State University researchers "several options" to find the callers, says Hutson.

On September 6, Kolbe received a dead rat in the mail. Postal investigators are investigating the source of the package, which was postmarked in Brooklyn, New York. Just days after Kolbe received the dead rat in her mail a frequent poster on the Internet forum Haitiforever.com, Michel Nau, a senior analyst at Georgetown University, commenting on the Lancet survey claimed it smelled "like a dead rat."

"Intimidation and violence against journalists and human rights investigators critical of the coup government is nothing new, as Kolbe's death threats are the most recent." explains Randall White editor of Haitiaction.net, which frequently covered assaults on the poor by security forces of the interim government. Radio WKAT reporter Abdias Jean was executed on January 12 2005, according to witnesses after photographing the summary execution of three young men by Interim government police. Later that year, in September, SWAT members of the Police Nationale d'Haiti (PNH) arrested American journalist Kevin Pina and a Haitian photojournalist working for AP Jean Ristil. Ristil was arrested again and subjected to torture later in 2005 on orders from Haiti's Central Headquarters of the Judicial Police.

The persecution of those who expose human rights abuses is to be expected, says Hutson who explains that the research team expected "our methodology and findings to be subjected to intense scrutiny because we examined patterns of violations by political actors who might not have wanted those violations to be exposed." But, he says, "the charges of bias are baseless. We were aware Athena had written under another name and found no conflict. Our concern is the way UN soldiers are interacting with Haitians." Lancet Publisher, Richard Horton, explains the study had excellent credential and peer reviews, stating in the UK's Guardian newspaper, "It was very thoroughly reviewed by four external advisers," he said.

Several other human rights studies, such as those by the Miami University of Law, the New York University School of Law, the National Lawyers Guild, and Amnesty International, found the interim government and paramilitary forces guilty of extra-judicial violence, reports that received little coverage in the press (Sprague, 2006). One of the few local Haitian human rights groups to focus on violence within Port-au-Prince's slum communities, the Association of University Graduates Motivated For A Haiti With Rights (AUMOHD), has reported frequently on violence against Lavalas communities.

Kolbe concludes, "Our type of study can not be used to prove that no violations happened by a particular group; it can only be used to show broader patterns of abuse against the populace. Human rights workers reported patterns of violations by political actors against people throughout Port-au-Prince during 2004 and 2005 and that?s exactly what we found."

The Lancet study found that 21 percent of the killings were attributed to members of the interim government's Haitian National Police (HNP), 13 percent to the demobilized army and 13 percent to anti-Lavalas gangs such as Lame Timachet. Most of the rest of the violations were attributed to criminal elements. The study also found a high amount of sexual violence committed since Aristide's ouster, much of it committed by anti-Lavalas political actors. Although Kolbe points out that the study found a number of sexual threats and threats of physical violence were issued by UN troops and Lavalas supporters.

Charles Arthur's organization the Haiti Support Group acknowledges amongst its associates a number of organizations which failed to report on the interim government's wave of violence upon Haitian slum dwellers, such as the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH) which received funding from the Canadian quasi-governmental agency "Rights and Democracy", a partner with the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Also affiliated with the Haiti Support Group, the Batay Ouvriye (BO) who called for Aristide to "leave the country" is the recent recipient of $450000 USD in NED and State Department programs through the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). Camille Chalmers, head of the Haitian Advocacy Platform for Alternative Development (PAPDA) another group affiliated with the Haiti Support Group, lobbied for the resignation of Aristide and coauthored a letter labeling Aristide a "dictator" with another PAPDA official, Yves Andres Wainwright who later become environment
Minister under the Latortue government. Chalmers then established close ties with the Canadian "Democracy Promotion" agency Alternatives, who works with the NED and receives 50% of its budget from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Christian Aid a financer of the Haiti Support Group receives significant funding from the British government as well as CIDA.

The controversial human rights activist Pierre Esperance and his organization National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) refused to go into poor neighborhoods after the coup, which they explained to a Quixote Center delegation in March 2004. Esparance at the time of Aristide's ouster was a treasurer of POHDH, while his other organization NCHR received $100000 USD from CIDA, renewable every six months.

While the Lancet study was run on a small budget the aforementioned groups heavily funded and closely connected with Canadian, European, and U.S. government or quasi-government agencies have yet to subject their claims on human rights abuses in Haiti to similar peer-review.

----------------------------
Joe Emesberger is a writer living in Canada with an interest in Haiti.
Jeb Sprague is a graduate student and freelance journalist. Visit his blog at  http://www.freehaiti.net

JEB SPRAGUE & JOE EMESBERGER
- e-mail: Jemersberger@aol.com
- Homepage: http://www.counterpunch.org/sprague09112006.html

Comments

Hide the following 2 comments

The Lancet study is correct!

12.09.2006 01:42

The Lancent study provided information that had already been investigated by other human rights delegations. This study is accurate and the attempt by Charles Arthur to attack the character of 1 of its 13 participants is a joke. The Latortue government cracked down on the poor haitian communities, this is something arthur and others do not want to realize because they did not take part in slum investigations.

KAT


CHAN denounces Charles Arthur and Haiti Support Group

12.09.2006 02:28

By: 11 CHAN activists Sep-10-2006

Sunday, September 10, 2006

To: Edward Greenspon, Editor-in-chief, Globe and Mail

Cc: Stephen Northfield, Foreign Editor
Patrick Martin, Comment Editor


The September 10 edition of the Globe and Mail contains a lengthy and scurrilous attack on one of the authors of an important study on the human rights situation in Haiti that was recently published in the prestigious British medical journal The Lancet.

The Lancet study reports that in the Port-au-Prince area alone, an estimated 8,000 people were killed and 35,000 women were victims of sexual assault in the two years that followed the violent coup that overthrew the elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. When the study was published at the end of August, the Globe and Mail censored any coverage of it. This was in keeping with the paper's editorial policy in support of the 2004 coup and its censorship of earlier human rights reports on the appalling situation in Haiti.

Perhaps you felt that your integrity was compromised when rival newspaper chain CanWest carried a major story on September 1 in several of its affiliates, including the Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette. Perhaps you were embarrassed when several of CBC Radio One's programs gave the study a serious look, including The Current on September 5. Whatever the reason, the Globe editors decided to run an article in today's edition.

But the article is a farce. It makes no effort to seriously examine the Lancet study. Its sole purpose is to discredit the study's findings, and it attempts this by casting baseless aspersions on one of the study's authors, Athena Kolbe.

The Globe article has a lurid headline, "Author of Lancet article on Haiti investigated". But a reading of the Globe article shows that the main agency investigating the author in question...is the Globe writer, Marina Jimenez!

As her authority for questioning the credibility of the Lancet researcher, Jimenez cites a spokesperson of the Haiti Support Group in Great Britain. The spokesperson refers to the international movement of solidarity with the Haitian people as "pro-Aristide propaganda". The Haiti Support Group has been a voice of apology for the massive rights violations perpetrated against the Haitian people since 2004. If the group has an opinion on the coup and the fierce repression that followed, it is not explained on its website. A February, 2006 statement by the group refers to the coup as the "controversial departure" of Aristide from Haiti. A review of the group's frequent news postings over the past two years finds the coup variously described as a "resignation", "departure", "controversial departure", etc. by President Aristide.

Such dissembling is perhaps less surprising considering the close relationship between the Haiti Support Group and a number of Canadian and US Government funded "NGOs" in Haiti that worked actively to undermine Haiti's elected government and prepare the ground for a coup d'état. An example of these relationships is seen in their support for the work of the "Batay Ouvriye" trade union group in Haiti. Earlier this year, Batay Ouvriye defended (after failing to disclose) its receipt of hundreds of thousands of dollars from the U.S. State Department for its work in Haiti and abroad.

Ironically, Jimenez' only other source for the smear against Athena Kolbe is itself a deeply partisan player in Haiti's politics – the Government of Canada-funded organization called Rights and Democracy. Jimenez wrongly refers to this group as a "non-government organization" when in fact it is controlled by and so tightly integrated with the federal government that it is subject to the federal Access to Information Act. Rights and Democracy's role in backing pro-coup groups in Haiti has been repeatedly exposed and challenged, a fact that Jimenez chooses to omit.

The conclusions of the Lancet study are very consistent with what credible journalists and human rights reports have been saying about Haiti since the 2004 coup. It goes into much greater detail than earlier studies have done. The shocking numbers at which it arrives are the result of a scientific method accepted by peer reviewers at The Lancet and by an institutional review board at Wayne State University in Michigan where the study's two authors work and study.

This valuable research deserves wide distribution, study and commentary. Sadly, the Globe and Mail, Canada's "newspaper of record", has served notice that it is the last place to look for a serious and objective review of what has taken place in Haiti and the role that our government has played there.


Signed,


Roger Annis - Haiti Solidarity BC
Anthony Fenton – Haiti Solidaritiy BC
Greg Farrants – Canada Haiti Action Network-Edmonton
Regan Boychuk – Canada Haiti Action Network-Calgary
Mary Skerrett – Haiti Action Guelph
Steve DaSilva – Toronto Haiti Action Committee
Jean Saint-Vil – Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee
Marcella Adey – Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee
Kevin Skerrett – Ottawa Haiti Solidarity Committee
Yves Engler – Haiti Action Montreal
Tracy Glynn – Haiti Action Fredericton


Text of Original Article by Marina Jimenez

"Author of Lancet article on Haiti investigated: Writer critical of Canadian
peacekeepers worked at orphanage founded by Aristide"

Globe and Mail (Toronto)
7 September 2006
p. A6
 http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060907.HAITI07/TPStory/National

The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, is investigating
complaints about a potential conflict of interest involving the author of a
recent article that found systemic human-rights violations in Haiti despite
the presence of a Canadian-led United Nations police force and peacekeeping
mission.

The study, co-authored by Athena Kolbe, found that 8,000 Haitians have been
slain and 35,000 women and girls raped since the ouster of president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in early 2004. Ms. Kolbe said that according to local
Haitians, Canadian peacekeepers made death threats against them during house
raids, and sexual advances against women while the peacekeepers were drunk
and off duty.

However, Ms. Kolbe herself is now the subject of controversy after
revelations that the 30-year-old master's degree student at Wayne State
University's school of social work in Detroit used to be an advocacy
journalist who wrote under the name Lyn Duff and worked at a Haitian
orphanage founded by Mr. Aristide.

"How can Kolbe/Duff's research into the issues of human-rights violations be
regarded as objective when she herself states that for 3.5 years she worked
with the Lafanmi Selavi centre for street children, where she befriended
Aristide himself and presumably some of the boys who later left the centre .
. . [who] then acted as armed enforcers?" Charles Arthur, co-ordinator of
the British-based Haiti Support Group, wrote this week in a letter of
complaint to The Lancet.

"There is a concerted international campaign to distort news and manipulate
information about Haiti with the apparent aim of repairing the reputation of
Aristide. I am concerned The Lancet has unwittingly been used as part of the
pro-Aristide propaganda campaign."

Nobody from The Lancet was available to comment yesterday, but Ms. Kolbe
said the magazine is investigating, and she is confident it will find no
conflict of interest.

"The Lancet would have appreciated hearing it from me and not from an
outsider," she said in an interview. "But it's not like they wouldn't have
published the article. The findings aren't at issue."

Ms. Kolbe said she used to write articles under the name Lyn Duff - an old
nickname and her mother's surname - but wanted to go by her father's surname
and her real first name once she entered academia.

She also said that from 1994-1997, she worked at an orphanage founded by Mr.
Aristide, met him several times, and was an admirer of the then-president.
Some of the children at the orphanage maintained links with him. "I am not a
supporter of Lavalas [Aristide's political party]. I have warm feelings
toward Aristide, but I am critical of some of his decisions."

She and her co-author, assistant professor Royce Hutson, defended the
results of their survey, which has prompted some groups to call for a
parliamentary inquiry into Canada's role in Haiti.

Mr. Aristide's first term in office was interrupted by a 1991 military coup
and his second ended abruptly on Feb. 29, 2004, after a rebellion of thugs
and ex-soldiers forced him out. He argues the United States forced him into
exile.

Canada sent 450 soldiers to Haiti in March, 2004, part of a UN peacekeeping
mission of 6,700 soldiers and 1,600 police. The soldiers left in August that
year, and there are currently 66 police officers in Haiti leading the UN
police force.

The Lancet peer-reviewed study of 5,720 randomly selected Haitians living in
the capital found that in the 22-month period since Mr. Aristide's ouster,
97 had received death threats, 232 had been threatened physically and 86
sexually. According to survey respondents, one-third of those who issued
death threats were criminals, 18 per cent were Haitian National Police and
other government security agents and another 17 per cent were foreign
soldiers. Only 6 per cent were Lavalas.

Mr. Arthur said these findings contradict independent human-rights
investigators who report that many of the violations have been committed by
criminals, Haitian police and anti-Aristide groups - as well as Lavalas
supporters. "My concern is that either the conduct or interpretation of the
research was skewed or biased in order to exonerate Fanmi Lavalas/Aristide
supporters from accusation of involvement in human-rights violations," he
said in his letter.

Nicholas Galletti, with Rights and Democracy, a Montreal non-governmental
organization, said the author's background further calls into question a
study "based on flawed methodology" whereby responsibility for crimes is
attributed to groups without a proper criminal investigation or trial.

However, Prof. Hutson says the study acknowledges the limitations of having
to rely on subject recall.

"The charges of bias are baseless. We were aware Athena had written under
another name and found no conflict. Our concern is the way UN soldiers are
interacting with Haitians."

CHAN
- Homepage: http://www.canadahaitiaction.ca/