Haiti: Lame Ti Manchèt accused of role in killing of Photojournalist

According to SOS Journalistes, of which Badio was a member, he was assassinated after taking photos of the killers. They state that his family has received multiple death threats. Agence Haitïenne de Presse (AHP) reports that according to Badio's close friends the victim had been the object of death threats from members of the vigilante group "the Little Machete Army" and that "residents of Martissant accuse the Little Machete Army of committing most of the killings in the area".

An early press release put out by the Paris based Reporters Without Borders (RSF) attempted to place the blame for the murder on both Lame Ti Manchèt and another group known as Baz Gan Ravine. RSF's Directrice générale in Canada Emily Jacquard wrote, "Two armed gangs - Lame Ti Manchèt (Little Machete Army) and Baz Gran Ravin (Big Ravine Base) - have been fighting for the control of Martissant for the past two years".

The report, without mentioning residents charges against Lame Ti Manchèt for having a role in the murder of Badio, also failed to mention that the overwhelming amount of documented political killings in Martissant over the last two years have been conducted by Lame Ti Manchèt, this includes a massacre of 21 people, the burning down of 300 homes 7/9/06, and a massacre carried out jointly with the Haitian police at a USAID sponsored soccer tournament 8/20/05. In contrast to massive evidence showing violent rampages by Lame Ti Manchèt, people on the ground in Martissant consistently explain that since 2004 the Baz Gran Ravin (Big Ravine Base) has served as a self-defense grouping.

Soon after the 2004 coup it is believed that Lame Ti Manchèt came into existence under the tutelage of the illegal Latortue regime whose mission was to "eliminate people hostile to the interim regime". (AHP 1/23/07) A young journalist Abdias Jean was executed, with a bullet in his head, by police of the interim government in January of 2005. RSF and other groups seen as partial to Haiti's interim authorities failed to report on the killing.

According to reports from AUMOHD, a human rights group active in Martisant, the 2006 massacre conducted by Lame Ti Manchèt "was meant as a smoke screen to provoke Baz Gran Ravine into a retaliation and thereby distract from the push to get police and civilians involved with Lame Ti Manchèt into jail. AUMOHD'S community human rights council (CHRC) coordinator, Esterne Bruner, was assassinated by Lame Ti Manchèt 9/21/06. But there has not been any retaliation reported. Instead the CHRC, non-violent and non-partisan, continues to prosecute all the killings".

The Institute for Justice and Democracy (IJDH) in Haiti observes, ""The Little Machete Army will keep going until someone stops them. They carried out the August 2005 soccer game massacre with the help of police, and right near a MINUSTAH (United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti) observation post. Then they struck again the next day, burning house after house. They did a series of attacks in the summer of 2006. But neither MINUSTAH nor the PNH will go in and arrest the leaders". Footage from the August 2005 soccer game massacre appeared in New York Times author Walt Bogdanich's documentary "Haiti: Democracy Undone".

Guyler Delva of the Haitian Associaon of Journalists (AJH) has denounced the killing of Badio on numerous Haitian media outlets. On 1/25/06 Amnesty International issued a pres release denouncing the killing of Badio. The Associate Press reports that Fred Blaise, a U.N. police spokesman, explained that gang members were suspected in the shooting but no arrests have been made. Following the murder of Badio, Haitain Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis authorized MINUSTAH soldiers to increase patrols in Martissant.

Thousands have been killed in Haiti since the unconstitutional overthrow of its elected government in February 2004. A scientific study done through random spatial sampling and published in the British medical journal, The Lancet, found that between early 2004 to mid 2006, 4,000 people were killed by the interim government's forces and its armed supporters in the greater Port-au-Prince area. The second half of the study which its author presented this month shows that the vast majority of those targeted were supporters of Lavalas and Lespwa.


See http://www.haitianalysis.com
and http://www.narconews.com
Photo of UN troop in Martissant AFP 15 July 2006