NCHR, WOLA, CIP, LCHR and HRW/Americas Urge Congressional Support for the OAS-U.N. Civilian Observers' Mission in Haiti

Dear Chairmen Helms and Gilman:

We write to urge continuing full U.S. support for the International Civilian Observer Mission of the United Nations and Organization of American States in Haiti (MICIVIH). Since 1993, MICIVIH has been a vital force for human-rights observance and the institutionalization of democracy in that troubled country.

As human rights organizations with dozens of years of experience in Haiti, we are disturbed to learn that you have placed a hold on U.S. funding for MICIVIH, threatening the mission with closure as soon as the end of May. In the joint resolutions you previously introduced in the House and Senate, you rightly stressed the dangers facing the nascent Haitian democracy today. In those resolutions you also recommended recourse to the Organization of American States.

Since Haiti's democratic institutions appear to be in jeopardy once again, this is the wrong time to pull the plug on MICIVIH. In two recent violent incidents, Senator Jean-Yvon Toussaint was assassinated on March 1 and a week later our colleague Pierre Esperance, the director of the U.S-based National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR) office in Port-au-Prince, was shot and wounded by unknown assailants. Tensions may run particularly high as Haiti moves into a difficult electoral period over the coming months.

As you note in your letter, MICIVIH was created to look into military abuses, a task it carried out well under very difficult conditions. Its mandate was expanded to help the fragile new democracy develop institutions necessary to avoid the human rights abuses of the past. Its work investigating and reporting on human rights problems with the young Haitian National Police in conjunction with that of local and international nongovernmental organizations has played an important role in improving police performance.

As you also note in your letter, Haiti must to develop a local capacity to monitor human rights that will be sustainable after MICIVIH leaves (indeed, one of the signers of this letter the NCHR has an ongoing human rights training program in Haiti toward precisely that end). We do not believe, however, that curtailing MICIVIH's presence today will advance this goal for several reasons. First, local organizations still have quite limited monitoring and investigative capacity. MICIVIH thus remains the only organization that can carry out human rights investigations across Haiti today. Second, local organizations are themselves now in danger. The attack on Pierre Esperance came after a series of threats were made against the members of the Haitian Platform of Human Rights Organizations, of which the NCHR is a member. MICIVIH's investigative capabilities are an important resource that should be kept in Haiti through the period ahead. MICIVIH has supported institutional development and the transfer of skills to local Haitian groups.

Furthermore, MICIVIH has provided some measure of protection to the local human rights activists.

MICIVIH also has played a key role in election monitoring, which will be vital if Haiti is to emerge from its ongoing political crisis. MICIVIH specialists have seconded U.N-OAS observation teams in all recent elections, often bringing invaluable knowledge of local conditions. If MICIVIH is disbanded in May, the organization of a large and effective electoral monitoring mission would prove costly and cumbersome. We recognize MICIVIH's distinguished role in supporting Haiti's struggling democracy. We hope that you will renew U.S. support for

MICIVIH through its current mandate, which is due to expire at the end of 1999.

Sincerely,

Bill Goodfellow
Executive Director Center for International Policy

José Miguel Vivanco
Executive Director of the Americas Division
Human Rights Watch

Stefanie Grant
Director
Program and Policy
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights

Jocelyn McCalla
Executive Director
National Coalition for Haitian Rights

George R. Vickers
Executive Director
Washington Office on Latin America

Kofi Annan
Secretary-General, United Nations

César Gaviria
Secretary-Genera
Organization of American States

Samuel Berger
Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs

Elizabeth Spehar
Unit for the Promotion of Democracy
Organization of American States

Ambassador David Greenley, Special Haiti Coordinator, United States Department of State

Ambassador Colin Granderson, MICIVIH

Senator Joseph Biden, Ranking Democrat, Senate Foreign Relations Committee

Representative Sam Gejdenson, Ranking Democrat, House International Relations Committee