04-18-06,9:24am

International Association of Democratic Lawyers Calls on UN to Respect Haiti’s Sovereignty, Interim Government to Free Political Prisoners

Bureau Meeting of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers

RESOLUTION ON HAITI

Whereas the United Nations following its Resolution 1542 sent a so-called “peace mission” to Haiti after the sudden departure of President Jean Bertrand Aristide under suspicious and unclear circumstances;

Whereas the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH), manipulated by the United States, did not fulfill its role in its “mission for peace” according to its obligations under the UN Charter and UN Resolution 1542;

Whereas MINUSTAH’s presence has not done anything to ameliorate the human rights situation in Haiti, despite the fact that the Human Right’s section of MINUSTAH itself described Haiti’s human rights situation as “catastrophic”;

Whereas, since the establishment of the Interim Government in Haiti on February 29, 2004, the judicial system in Haiti has transformed into a veritable machine of political repression whereby members of the LAVALAS and other progressive movements have been arrested and jailed without any legal justification while, at the same time, people accused of grave human rights violations, massacres and kidnapping walk freely, no doubt with the complicity of the Interim Government of Haiti; Whereas MINUSTAH, instead of working to ameliorate the human rights situation in Haiti, has instead tried to place Haiti under the guardianship of the United Nations by signing an Accord with the Interim Government on February 22, 2006, two weeks after the election of the new President, which placed the Haitian National Police under the guardianship of MINUSTAH, this accord has since been denounced and cancelled;

Whereas, considering that during the February 7, 2006 elections, the Haitian people gave a lesson in democracy to the entire world by electing, in the first round, President Rene Préval;

First, IADL would like to welcome the new President of Haiti René PREVAL. The IADL hereby resolves, at this Bureau meeting in Cuba on April 11 and 12, 2006, to reaffirm the resolution of the General Assembly of the IADL passed at the Paris Congress and the resolution passed at the IADL Bureau Meeting in Sofia, Bulgaria- those being the release of all persons who, before the swearing-in of President Preval, were detained without charge, or who were arrested as political prisoners, or who were arrested as prisoners of conscience as defined by Amnesty International, and to demand of the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the UN Security Council to respect the sovereignty and self-determination of the Haitian people to choose their own leaders.

Havana, Cuba April 12, 2006