From Haiti Progress

On January 14, a process server ambushed Emmanuel 'Toto' Constant outside the U.S. Federal Building in lower Manhattan and handed him papers ordering him to appear in court to answer to a lawsuit filed by three women who had been raped by members of the death-squad he founded.

Constant's paramilitary group, the Revolutionary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti or FRAPH, became internationally infamous in 1993 and 1994 for the terror it sowed under the military coup government that ruled Haiti at that time.

The San Francisco-based Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA), with the support of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), has filed a lawsuit against Constant in U.S. federal court in the Southern District of New York on behalf of women who survived savage gang rapes and other forms of extreme violence, including attempted murder. The legal groups are using the Alien Tort Claims Act, adopted in 1789, which gives survivors of egregious human rights abuses, wherever committed, the right to sue persons responsible for the abuses in U.S. federal court. Since 1980, the law has been used successfully in cases involving torture (including rape), extrajudicial killing, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and arbitrary detention.

Since 1996, Constant has lived freely in and around Queens, New York, enjoying de facto political asylum from Washington. Once a week, he must check in with U.S. immigration authorities in Manhattan. That was where the CJA's process server caught him.

'Toto Constant's comfortable lifestyle in Queens has enraged and offended the Haitian community in this country as well as human rights activists around the globe,' said the CJA's Executive Director Sandra Coliver. 'We are honored to represent these courageous women who are taking great risks by coming forward. They brought this lawsuit in the name of the hundreds of women who cannot speak out because of the violence that reigns today in Haiti.'

Unlike the lawsuit that the CCR brought against the FRAPH June 1994, this action targets Constant personally. 'We aim to get a money judgement and move to get a collection from his assets, whatever those might be,' explained Moira Feeney, one of he CJA staff attorneys who has been working on the case from months. 'Secondly, we want to get an official judgement of liability and responsibility for his actions as the leader of FRAPH,' which committed a host of killings and human rights abuses in addition to rape.

Constant has 20 days to respond to the lawsuit. If he does not, 'we'll move for a default judgement,' Feeney said. In past default judgements, some judges have let the CJA 'bring forth a lot of important evidence which allowed us to set right the historical record,' Feeney said. 'That would be our hope in this case.'

The CJA has obtained favorable verdicts in similar cases. It won a $54 million judgement against two former generals from El Salvador who had come to live in the U.S., and similar rulings against human rights abusers from Bosnia and Chile. It presently has a case pending against former Haitian Colonel Carl Dorélien, who won the Florida State lottery in 1997. Feeney feels that the case against Constant is 'stronger' than all of those.

Nonetheless, Constant may have some powerful friends in the U.S. government, who may have even tipped him off that the CJA was quietly preparing a lawsuit against him. 'Our process server seemed to think that he was not surprised' when served with papers, Feeney said.

All three plaintiffs in this case are women who were targeted by Constant and FRAPH as part of a systematic campaign of violence against women. Two of the women were gang-raped repeatedly by FRAPH members in front of their families. One of the plaintiffs became pregnant and bore a child as a result of the rape she suffered. FRAPH operatives attacked the third plaintiff because they could not find her husband. They left her for dead. Fearing reprisals, the plaintiffs in this case have filed their claims anonymously as Jane Doe 1, 2 and 3.

'It is important to highlight that this type of violence is occurring today in Haiti,' Feeney said. 'With almost the exact same modus operandi as the FRAPH attackers in 1993 and 1994, heavily armed masked men are attacking poor women in their homes at night, gang-raping them in front of their families.'

Constant's FRAPH was the principal agent of terror in Haiti in 1993 and 1994. FRAPH held a noisy and aggressive demonstration on the wharf in Port-au-Prince on October 13, 1993, when the U.S.S. Harlan County was supposed to offload U.S. and Canadian soldiers to prepare Aristide's scheduled October 30, 1993 return. In the face of the antics of a few dozen drunken hooligans, the U.S. troop carrier withdrew. The unwarranted retreat was later recognized as a Pentagon and CIA-directed act of sabotage of President Bill Clinton's first attempt to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power.

About a year later, after U.S. troops invaded and occupied Haiti on September 19, 1994, the U.S. Embassy tried to dress up FRAPH as the 'loyal opposition' to Aristide's Lavalas movement. But giant and hostile crowds surrounded and foiled a U.S. Embassy-organized press conference attempting to sell Constant to the public, and in December 1994, the Haitian Justice Ministry issued warrants for Constant's arrest.

Constant quietly slipped out of Haiti and legally entered the U.S. on a tourist visa. He began openly cavorting around New York, provoking Haitian community outrage. In February 1995, the U.S. said it was looking to deport him. Four months later, Immigration agents arrested Constant at his aunt's home in Queens on May 12, 1995. He spent the next 13 months in U.S. immigration detention centers, during which time he gave an interview to CBS's '60 Minutes' where he revealed that he had been working as a CIA agent in Haiti.

On June 19, 1996, Haïti Progrès broke the story about 'The Secret Deal to Free Emmanuel Constant,' (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 14, No. 13) in which it outlined how Constant was freed on June 14 through a special deal between U.S. government agencies, including the CIA.

Since then, Constant has been the target of several Haitian community protests in Queens. In November 2000, he was convicted in absentia in Haiti for his role in the notorious 'Raboteau Massacre' of April 1994 in Gonaïves. Until now, no court in the U.S. or Haiti has forced him to face trial in person for the human rights abuses he committed against the people of Haiti. No one from the ranks of FRAPH or the Haitian Armed Forces has been held accountable for the hundreds of politically motivated rapes that were committed and continue to be committed against the women of Haiti.

One of the plaintiffs in the suit against Constant, speaking on behalf of all of the plaintiffs, said: 'We hope that the suit will deter at least some of the violence [happening today in Haiti], by sending a message that anyone who commits atrocities will no longer be able to visit or live in the U.S. with impunity.'

For more information on the suit, visit the Center for Justice and Accountability's website at www.cja.org.