Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies

Dominican Republic and Haiti: Country Studies
sionalism on the part of the police. Many were believed to be
summary executions of suspects and detainees. Others
occurred during police actions against gangs and mobs. Cases
of police executions and serious police crimes were investigated
by the Office of the Inspector General, although police
beatings were likely to be overlooked.
In January 1999, the secretary of state for justice and public
security announced that 500 police implicated in various
infractions had been removed from the force. However, the
weakness of the judiciary has precluded successful prosecutions
of police for unjustified deaths. This apparent impunity
was underscored in 1997, when an investigative judge released
without trial six members of the PNH who had been charged
with participating in three separate incidents of summary executions.
The judge involved was later removed from office, and
Haitian authorities were making efforts to reinstitute charges.
Police mistreatment of detainees appears to be on the
increase. The ICM recorded 191 such incidents in 1998. This
rise, which went up nearly five times in a single year, may have
been linked to the beatings of large groups of inmates in connection
with escape attempts at two prisons. Many reports
involved beatings of armed gang members, excessive force in
dealing with demonstrators, application of psychological pressures,
and administration of shock treatment to prisoners while
they were under questioning. However, these incidents of
human rights violations by the PNH failed to substantiate a policy
of deliberate or systematic abuse. The inspector general has
focused most of his resources on police criminal activities and
has not punished many cases of abuse. Complaints against
indiscriminate use of firearms by the police have declined in
spite of the increase in the number of police deployed. The
inexperience and youth of the recruits as well as training shortcomings
and fears for their own safety accounted for many of
the problems of the new force.
Multinational Security Assistance
The coup of September 1991 against Haiti's first democratically
elected president brought condemnation by the UN Security
Council and the imposition of sanctions by the OAS.
Diplomatic efforts by the OAS to restore the Aristide government
lacked force in part because the OAS embargo was so
porous. It was not until June 1993, when the Security Council
imposed a worldwide fuel and arms embargo, that the leaders
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