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by Kim Ives
 Shots
rang out during a demonstration on Nov. 16 on Rue Oswald Durand
near the Economy and Finance Ministry Annex, in front of the
State University’s Law School.
Afterwards, Daniel Stanley
Florestal, 19, lay dead. His body is still lying in the state
hospital’s morgue.
At first, students on the scene
claimed that soldiers of the UN Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH)
had shot and killed Florestal, whose name, they said at the
time, was “Jonas.”
However, MINUSTAH denied all
responsibility: “According to information received by MINUSTAH,
a Haitian citizen was shot and killed during a gathering of
people that took place today in the vicinity of the Faculty of
Law in Port -au-Prince,” said a MINUSTAH statement. “The person
was taken to the hospital and was pronounced dead later.
Contrary to initial allegations, we confirm that no member of
MINUSTAH fired on the person.”
Meanwhile, Frantz Lerebours,
spokesman for the Haitian National Police (PNH), told the
Alterpresse news agency that the victim was a "thug" and that
another man who had been with him, Leveque Sanon, had been shot
and "is currently in the hands of the police."
According to the version the
PNH gave Alterpresse: "An individual killed the bandit who was
assaulting another citizen. This version is contrary to initial
reports that suggest that the individual was killed by agents of
the [PNH’s] Corps for Intervention and Maintenance of Order (CIMO)
and the MINUSTAH."
But the police were responsible
for the death of Daniel, according to a woman at the scene who
spoke with Le Nouvelliste’s Roberson Alphonse: "MINUSTAH
shot rubber bullets at us all morning," she testified. "But, I
tell you, it was the PNH who killed the student."
The victim had blood stains on
the front and back of his shirt.
Daniel Stanley Florestal lived
with his mother in the Christ-Roi section of Port-au-Prince. He
had not yet finished his secondary studies and was not going to
school at the time. But he often turned out for student
protests, and many students knew him.
After he was shot, students
loaded Daniel into the back of a pickup to take him to the
hospital.
Until now, Florestal’s family has refused to
retrieve his body from the morgue. They say they are afraid and
claim to have received many threats from people “close to the
government.” |
