Haiti: Prominent businessman arrested for role in kidnapping

Is Coicou a Good Family Name?

November 28, 2012

Haiti: Prominent businessman arrested for role in kidnapping

Published by Jean Saint-Vil at November 12, 2012

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Someone sent me Amy Wilentz’s recent article which discusses the arrest of alleged kidnapping gang leader Clifford Brandt in Haiti. In the text, there is this paragraph, especially its last sentence, that caught my attention:

“There were many theories about who was behind the enlevman, as kidnapping is called in Creole; kidnapping of this kind is always and everywhere an organized business of sorts. Many thought it was being run by the Brazilian troops who were a part of the approximately 11,000-person UN force that had been put in place in Haiti after Aristide’s fall, since Rio is a known vortex of kidnappers. Others claimed the business was being run by supporters of ousted president Aristide, in order to destabilize the new government. Others felt that it was just the usual criminal element, street thugs and drug lords taking advantage of troubled times. Everyone suspected — indeed, everyone knew — that there was police collusion, no matter who was the guiding force. No one, or no one who was talking, suspected the traditional elite. (Now everyone in Haiti says they knew, but that’s just Monday-morning F.B.I.ing.)”

http://amywilentz.tumblr.com/post/36021464848/werewolves-in-the-clubs

Contrary to Amy Wilentz’ assertion, there were those who suspected the traditional “elite” all along and they did speak up. Some of it was done, in fact, on this very list (Bob Corbett’s Haiti List).

Rather than Monday-morning FBI.ing, isn’t what we are living these days better characterized as a case of “WE TOLD YOU SO – LONG AGO!”

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From: Amy Wilentz <amywilentz@mac.com>
Date: Tue, Nov 27, 2012 at 1:22 AM
Subject: Re: Saint-Vil (comment) Silence for werewolves of good family
To: Jean Saint-Vil <jafrikayiti@hotmail.com>

Thanks for this. May I quote you on my blog? I would very much like to.
You have shown me up, Jean!!

Amy

***

26081: Saint-Vil (comment) Millionaire Stanley Handal Arrested on Kidnapping Charges? (fwd)

To: “Bob Corbett’s Haiti list” <haiti@lists.webster.edu>
Subject: 26081: Saint-Vil (comment) Millionaire Stanley Handal Arrested on Kidnapping Charges? (fwd)
From: Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2005 12:06:39 -0500 (CDT)
Sender: owner-haiti@lists.webster.edu

From: Jaffrikayiti

News broke two days ago that a key organizer of the kidnapping wave that
caused so many deaths and so much suffering to Haitians in the past year
have been finally caught.

http://www.radiokiskeya.com/article.php3?id_article=1169

The arrest of Stanley Handal, a multi-millionaire suspected to be a ring
leader of the kidnapping enterprise, seems to corroborate the many
reports which suggested all along that the materminds of the kidnapping
phenomenon are rich and powerful individuals from Haiti’s ruling elite
who have powerful connections in the banking industry and within a
faction of the post-coup government, and who, as identified by the
Geneva-based Small Arms Survey, are the primary owners of firearm stocks
in the country.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=8165

Nonetheless Lavalas political activists or suspected sympathisers of the
deposed constitutional president continue to be scapegoated and marked
for elimination on the pretext that the regime and its
foreign accomplices are « fighting bandits ».

Most disturbing of all, in the last few weeks, news broke that the
Police had distributed machetes and supervised numerous public lynchings
in the poor neighborhoods.

http://rds.yahoo.com/S=53720272/K=Haiti/v=2/SID=e/l=NSR/R=1/SIG=1208pg8v3/EXP=11
25077280/*-http%3A//sg.news.yahoo.com/050825/3/3uh9l.html

We are receiving frequent on the ground reports of major UN/MINUSTAH
operations in the poor neighborhoods like Cite Soleil. The last such
operation, which was well-documented, resulted in the deaths of several
dozen civilians. Independent journalist and fimmaker Kevin Pina wrote an
emergency appeal about the coming massacre on August 18th, 2005, where he
writes:

"If the UN goes ahead with its plan for a second major military incursion
against Cite Soleil, it is guaranteed the number of casualties will far
exceed July 6th and further tarnish and expose the real role of the UN in
guaranteeing the coup of Feb. 28, 2004."

http://haitiaction.net/News/KP/8_18_5/8_18_5.html

As early as June of this year, the Police spokeperson who refused to
divulgate the identity of a detainee suspected of involvement in
kidnappings, shamelessly intervening to protect his « good family name »,
was lamenting to reporters how "there are people of good family and high
social level that unfortunately are involved in kidnappings,"

So, why are the poor still the target of such senseless repression?

Any investigative journalist or government or U.N. officials online
willing to comment ?

Jafrikayiti
«Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»

(Brotherhood is as ancient as Mother Africa - L'entraide fraternel date
du temps où, tous, nous fûmes encore dans les antrailles de
l'Afrique-mère)

https://jafrikayiti.com

***

See also: Haiti police investigate prominent businessman for alleged role in kidnapping ring by The Associated Press October 24, 2012