]PRESS RELEASE
May 20, 2020.
HUMAN RIGHTS IN HAITI
The Coordination Europe- Haiti (CoEH), a platform of European NGOs with local partner organisations in Haiti, is concerned about the human rights situation in Haiti and the threats raised once more against one of our Haitian partner organisations.
We wish to call attention to the difficult situation of human rights defenders in Haiti in recent times. Only a few days ago one of them, the RNDDH (Réseau National de Défense des Droits Humains, National Network for the Defence of Human Rights), has received threats and their office has been shot at during the night of 10 to 11 May 2020. Both the Haitian Office for the Protection of Citizens (OPC) and several civil society organisations have strongly condemned these events as an attempt to persecution and intimidation.
For many years, this human rights organisation, RNDDH, has played an important role in monitoring and raising alarm with respect to a number of human rights violations in Haiti. To mention just a few : their detailed reports, illustrated with witness accounts, of the massacres in the neighbourhoods of La Saline in 2018 and Bel Air in 2019, cases about the practices of armed gangs and their close relationship to certain state authorities; their disclosure of acts of corruption, of the violation of the rights of prisoners and other vulnerable groups in Haitian society… Obviously, this is not favoured by certain people and we fear that the attacks against the RNDDH are related to their pronouncements.
Is the eagerness of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ULCC) to question the usage of a donation that the RNDDH received from the BMPAB [1]in 2016, and which has been justified before the national audit office not a way to discredit the RNDDH before the Haitian people and partner organisations, and to silence them ?
We call on the duty of impartiality of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ULCC) when investigating the files of the Petrocaribe funds, and we hope that the warrant against the administrator of the RNDDH will be lifted. Also, we recommend that an investigation will be carried out to who has been responsible of the shots fired at the office of the RNDDH.
The CoEH expresses its solidarity with the RNDDH, long-time partner of several members of the platform and the CoEH encourages the RNDDH to continue their work of the defence and promotion of human rights and support of the Haitian people in their search for democracy, justice and human dignity.
The Steering Committee of the CoEH
The members of the CoEH are : https://www.coeh.eu/members/
[1] Bureau de Monétisation des Programmes d’Aide au Développement ; a government office in charge of allocating funds of the Petrocaribe Fund.