by Thomas Péralte
Haitian
authorities have captured another alleged member of the
kidnapping ring headed by Haitian elite businessman Clifford
Brandt. Haitian immigration officers arrested Mathurin Kerwens
Jacques at the border town of Malpasse on Nov. 20 as he tried to
cross into the Dominican Republic. Jacques was taken to the
Central Directorate of the Judicial Police (DCPJ) in
Port-au-Prince.
Brandt was arrested on Oct. 22,
2012 after he confessed to kidnapping two children of another
elite Haitian family, the Moscosos. Fourteen other alleged
members of Brandt’s ring have since been arrested, including
Marc-Arthur Phébé, the head of President Michel Martelly’s
counter-ambush (CAT) team and a close personal friend of the
president.
The police were reportedly
looking for Jacques, who was wanted in connection with several
crimes.
Despite the arrest of alleged
kidnappers working close to or inside the National Palace, for
over three weeks President Martelly said nothing publicly about
the case. Finally he made a statement last week while traveling
in Europe. “This is the first time in Haiti that we have
dismantled bandits on this scale,” Martelly said during a
meeting with EU representatives. “I’ll tell you bluntly, this
network is stronger than the state itself, to the point that
before my arrival here in Europe, I made a formal request to the
United States of America and France to get assistance. Because
this network, if it decides to overthrow the Government, it can
do it in a minute.”
Meanwhile, in Haiti, questions
continue to swirl around the extent of the Executive’s
involvement with the kidnapping ring. “The National Palace is
involved up to its neck in the kidnapping case of Brandt et al,”
said Pierre Esperance, the director of the National Human Rights
Defense Network (RNDDH), which released a detailed in-depth
report on the Brandt case on Nov. 13.
Esperance also denounced the
Palace’s attempts to influence justice in the case. “If the
political authorities prevent justice from doing its work in
this case, RNDDH will have to publish another report,” he said.
Esperance also charged that all
measures have been taken by the Executive to win the release all
the police officers implicated in this case, which he said
exposes the links between the Haitian bourgeoisie and Haiti’s
highest authorities.
The RNDDH reported that an
official identity card issued by the National Palace’s security
was retrieved identifying Clifford Brandt as an “Adviser to the
President.” In a press conference last week, Sen. Moïse
Jean-Charles released an enlarged photograph of the card. Palace
spokesman Lucien Jura called the card a fake.
Whatever the case, the wider Haitian public believes
that criminals are working in and are sheltered by the National
Palace. “The advisers are kidnappers, the criminals are in the
National Palace!” chanted students demonstrating on Nov. 21 to
demand justice for Damaël D’Haïti, a college student majoring in
economics whom police shot dead during a Nov. 10 protest. “The
drug-dealers, they are in the National Palace!” |