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by the Center for Economic and Policy Research
 Last
week, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR)
granted precautionary measures
in favor of the 567 families that have been under constant
threat of eviction in the Grace Village camp. Given the
“imminent” threat to those in the camp, the IACHR urged the
Government of Haiti:
1. To adopt the necessary measures to
avoid the excessive use of force and of violence in any
eviction. In particular, to guarantee that the public
authorities' actions as well as those of private parties pose no
risk to the life and personal integrity of the camp residents;
2. To implement effective security
measures, in particular, to ensure that there is an adequate
patrol around and inside the camp and to install police stations
close to the camp. To this effect, the IACHR asks the Government
to provide special protection to women and children;
3. To ensure that the residents have
access to the potable water required for basic needs;
4. To consult with the beneficiaries and
their representatives regarding the measures that need to be
taken. In particular, ensure that the camp residents' committee
as well as grassroots women's groups can fully participate in
the planning and execution of the measures implemented for the
benefit of residents, including measures focused on the
prevention of sexual violence and other forms of violence in the
camp; and
5. To inform [the public] regarding the
adopted measures so as to investigate the events that justifies
the adoption of precautionary measures
As we have written
previously, the residents
of Grace Village have faced significant and on-going harassment,
which has included government complicity at both the local and
national level. The alleged owner of the land is Pastor Joel
Jeune, the founder of a Florida based 501(c)(3) organization,
Grace International Inc. As the request for precautionary
measures points out, the pastor’s close “ties to the mayor’s
office and the local police force him to enlist the help of
Haitian police to carry out illegal evictions. With his private
security forces and the Haitian police, Pastor Joel Jeune has
orchestrated and participated in violent, forced evictions of
displaced families living inside Grace Village.”
Amnesty International had
warned earlier this month
that the camp was “under threat of forced eviction” and that
there was a “list of people from the camp” that the police were
going to arrest. Amnesty urged the Haitian government to “ensure
that residents of Grace Village camp are not evicted without due
process, adequate notice and consultation, and that all those
affected have access to adequate alternative accommodation.”
In requesting the precautionary
measures, human rights lawyers Mario Joseph, Patrice Florvilus
and Nicole Phillips argue that:
the Haitian government’s failure to
protect a vulnerable group, while simultaneously assisting
non-state actors in brutalizing this vulnerable group, violates
the Equal Protection clause enshrined in Article 24 of the
American Convention on Human Rights. Finally, the Haitian
government’s failure to protect displaced families in Grace
Village from forced evictions interferes with these individuals’
exercise of fundamental rights, including the right to life,
personal liberty, privacy, family, property, and judicial
protection, as guaranteed by the Inter-American Convention.
The recommendations by the IACHR “reconfirm
that forced evictions from displacement camps not only add
trauma to earthquake victims, but also violate Haitian and
international human rights standards,” said Nicole Phillips of
the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. She added,
“landowners should raise their concerns with the Haitian
government and international community who have not provided
adequate housing to earthquake victims, rather than waging
violence against displaced communities desperate to find a safe
home.”
Meanwhile, in Haiti on Mar. 28, hundreds and perhaps
thousands of displaced persons marched for adequate housing and
against forced evictions.
Bri Kouri Nouvèl Gaye,
which
tweeted updates from the
march, noted that, “Each time the IDP protest passes a camp the
number of people grows; was several hundreds, now thousands.”
According to the UN, over
70,000 people (20% of the total displaced population) are facing
threats of eviction in 2013. |
