Search for the Authors of the Massacre in Jean Rabel

Haiti: Update, 13 September 1995

The Ministry of Justice issued warrants for the detention of the individuals accused of leading or participating in the massacre of July 23, 1987, in the region of Jean Rabel. The bloody attack, led by Tonton Macoutes at the service of a few large landowners, ended in the assassination of an estimated 250 peasants with another 700 wounded. It was the climax in a long persecution of the members of Tet Kole, a peasant association, who were demanding land which had been expropriated by the local wealthy families.

The massacre also represented one of the most tragic moments in Haiti’s long history of land conflicts. Today, as for the past 190 years since Independence, poor Haitians are demanding the return of lands expropriated from them by wealthy landowners, by the state, and by the security forces which traditionally served both. A national land reform program is guaranteed in the 1987 Constitution and was formally inaugurated by President Aristide this past April. Peasant organizations throughout Haiti are demanding a speedy return of lands stolen from them as a primary component of justice.

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