IV. HNP
Institutional Weakness
a.
Leadership problems and lack of professionalism
As we noted in our last report, the HNP was first deployed with almost no leadership in
place at mid and senior levels.(25) This was
unavoidable as Haiti was creating a new force from scratch. Early appointments were made
on political criteria and the result was disastrous. Following Pierre Denizé's March 1996
appointment as director general of the HNP, a massive leadership-recruitment effort was
undertaken. However, leadership remains weak. In Denizé's characterization, "our
priority was to eliminate the leadership void. It will be some years before we have a
command structure."(26)
As we noted earlier, most regional and central leadership posts are now filled. While this
is an important step forward, the posts have not always been filled by individuals with
leadership skills. This is partly because recruitment was based on academic criteria, and
leadership skills (or lack thereof) have only become apparent as supervisors have moved
into the field. One problem has to do with seniority. HNP officers all received less
training than the agents under their command. The departmental directors received only
four weeks of training, and the longest training of any of the current leadership was
three months. Deployed a year and a half after the first agents, commanders have less
experience than their subordinates. HNP Director General Denizé notes that: "some
agents look askance at commanders with less experience; they have developed their ways of
doing things and it is hard to break out of this and obey orders."(27)
Many officers have never held leadership roles in the private or public sectors.
Consequently, they have few management skills, are extremely inefficient, and "lose
themselves in details that subordinates ought to handle."(28)
Another widespread phenomenon is officers who appear only rarely and erratically at their
posts, spending more time on "personal business" and commandeering police
vehicles for their personal use. Observers note dramatic differences between police
stations, indicating that despite the institution-wide weaknesses, a central issue is the
capabilities of individual officers.(29) For
example, the police station in Pétionville was widely regarded as well-run. Since a
recent change in leadership the administration of this police station clearly and rapidly
deteriorated.
The United States Department of Justice's International Criminal Investigative Training
Assistance Program (ICITAP) has drafted guidelines, regulations, and codes of discipline
for the HNP. The guidelines are not currently being implemented by police commanders. Most
HNP commanders have no capacity or desire to take disciplinary actions against the agents
under their command and simply send disciplinary issues up to the IG. Departmental
directors have the authority to suspend agents for up to 20 days, but rarely exercise it.
There is only a very weak system of sanctions in place when mid-level officers fail to
perform their functions.(30) A further hindrance
to efforts to correct these problems is the lack of a system of participative command,
with no systematic feedback or reporting other than on individual incidents, which has
very limited value.(31) Supervision, oversight,
and information flows urgently need to be systematized and consolidated.
Director General Denizé and Inspector General Eucher Joseph are both aware of the
problems they face developing police leaders who will responsibly direct their commands.
They are trying to install management procedures and increase accountability to instill
more discipline and control in regional commanders. Denizé said that all command centers
now had direct radio communication with headquarters and he expected his departmental
directors to be in daily contact with him on activities within their sectors. He is also
implementing basic written reporting systems for each department which he estimates will
be in place in the next few months.(32)
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b. Specialized units
International donors and Haitian authorities responded to early human rights violations by
the HNP by creating specialized crowd control and rapid reaction units. HNP Director
General Denizé defined this as "a necessary response to a period of development
which confronted the need to build up the police and function simultaneously."(33) Denizé says that these units are under HNP
control and there is no issue of autonomous action as there has been with other units in
the past.(34) However, the procedures and
guidelines for their use in specific situations are not clear to outside observers or
indeed to many HNP agents who report receiving no response from the CIMO on several
occasions when they called for assistance. As noted above, there are concerns about the
heavy-handedness and use of inappropriate tactics by these units and their illegal
possession of heavy weapons.
Other specialized units are currently being trained and have started to deploy. These
include a Coast Guard unit with 150 members and an Anti-Narcotics Squad with 46 members.
Specialized training in criminal investigative techniques is now starting for the judicial
police, the equivalent of detectives in the United States, who work with judges on
criminal investigations. Given the extreme weakness of criminal investigations and the
credibility issues this raises for the HNP and the judiciary, training and deployment of
the judicial police must be an immediate priority.
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c. Administration and equipment
While the police are far better equipped than they were 18 months ago, the administrative
ability of the HNP to track, maintain and resupply equipment is horrendous, another
serious indication of HNP management problems. Maintenance is appalling, with equipment,
including guns, lying around in unsecured piles. Control systems for equipment and
materials remain embryonic. Many police do keep track of major equipment, but do not tally
smaller items such as bullets, nor account for the condition of their materials.(35) Police report that there is no administrative
procedure to request additional bullets for their pistols through the HNP, forcing agents
to buy bullets on their own.(36) CIVPOL
commanders believe that many commissaires have no idea how many weapons their
agents possess.(37)
Communication within the force remains poor, particularly in rural areas. There now is
radio communication between Port-au-Prince and the departmental directors and major urban
areas, but it is used only for operations, not administration (although Denizé said this
is now changing). Regular reports and information flows on institutional issues are
extremely limited. HNP agents interviewed at several police stations said that they have
no idea how to apply for specialized training, nor do they know the criteria and
procedures for promotions; one group of police agents said that they assumed that you
needed a "godfather" (parrain) among the police chiefs to move up in
the force.(38)
25. In late 1996, only some 50 percent of the roughly 140 commissaires
were in place. See "The Human Rights Record of the Haitian National Police,"
NCHR, WOLA, and Human Rights Watch/Americas, January 1997, p. 26.
26. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.
27. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.
28. Laparra interview, October 17, 1997.
29. There is "wide variation among the nine départments,
which can be attributed for the most part to differences in leadership provided."
Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Transition Mission in Haiti, New
York, October 31, 1997, paragraph 19.
30. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997. A September 25,
1995 decree of the CSPN corrects this problem and sets punishments for police commanders
who fail to exercise discipline in their units, ranging from loss of rank to dismissal
from the force. Document on file at WOLA.
31. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.
32. Denizé interview, December 18, 1997.
33. Denizé interview, October 20, 1997.
34. See "The Human Rights Record of the Haitian
National Police."
35. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.
36. A police agent in Cité Soleil, one of the most
conflictive zones in Haiti, said that he received 18 bullets two years ago and nothing
since. He reported that bullets for police-issue .38s are very hard to find now.
37. Laparra interview, October 16, 1997.
38. Interviews with HNP agents at Grand Goave, October 17,
1997, and Cité Soleil, October 19, 1997.
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