Hundreds of Displaced Families Face Violence and Threats of Unlawful Eviction (Haiti)

[EFerrari]

Hundreds of Displaced Families Face Violence and Threats of Unlawful Eviction in the Carrefour Neighborhood of Port-au-Prince

By Jocelyn Brooks and Greger Calhan, Center for Constitutional Rights Ella Baker legal interns in Port-au-Prince

July 14, 2011 — Standing out amidst the wreckage of a destroyed tent were a child’s stuffed animal and blue toy truck. This rubble pile was not the only make-shift home destroyed in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) known as Camp Centre d’Herbergement de Eric Jean-Baptiste in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The camp is under increasing, violent pressure to leave the plot of land from a man purporting to own it. Ironically, the camp is named after this man since people from the neighborhood believe he is the land’s owner. No proof, however, of his ownership has ever been presented to the camp residents – a significant fact given that only five percent of land title in Haiti had been recorded with the government before the earthquake.

Rendered homeless by the January 2010 earthquake, 680 families have built a small, hardy community in Camp Centre d’Herbergement, a dusty patch of land hidden from view in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Carrefour. Already vulnerable to natural forces, including wind, rain, and the stifling heat of Haiti’s mid-summer, this community is now under attack by man-made ones as well. In recent weeks, armed men, in the pay of the purported landowner, have entered the camp, assaulted and threatened residents, destroyed homes, and made promises of worse to come.

At the request of the camp’s Crisis Committee, a team from the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux (BAI) visited the camp on July 8th to speak with victims of the recent violence and threats. Described in detail, and corroborated by many residents, we heard about the nighttime visit by the camp’s purported landowner and a group of men—some in police uniforms and all of them armed. The men prowled through the camp, choosing tents apparently at random, to threaten, slash with sharp weapons, or tear down entirely. The unlucky victims of the destruction – many of whom were brusquely awakened from slumber by the attack – were forced to either squeeze into their neighbors’ cramped, temporary homes, or leave the camp altogether.

The armed men were belligerent and showed no regard for the safety or property of those residents arbitrarily chosen for attack. Most targeted individuals reported that they were given no time to remove their belongings (or, in some cases, even themselves) from the tents ahead of destruction. That no one suffered serious injuries was pure good luck, and no thanks to the reckless behavior of the intruders. In a few instances, the men destroyed tents knowing full well that their occupants were still inside—in one instance, this caused the wooden frame of a tent to come crashing down on top of a man.

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