wfn.org | Re: MCC HAITI WORKERS INTERVENE IN MOB VIOLENCE

[Mennonite Central Committee Communications]

TOPIC: MCC HAITI WORKERS INTERVENE IN MOB VIOLENCE  
DATE: August 9, 1996  
CONTACT: Emily Will 
V: 717/859-1151 F: 717/859-2171
E-MAIL ADDRESS: mailbox@mcc.org

August 9, 1996 
1)
MCC HAITI WORKERS INTERVENE IN MOB VIOLENCE

AKRON, Pa. -- Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)
workers in Haiti recently tasted the bitterness of mob
violence, intervening when they witnessed normally
gentle people turn brutal in a crowd.  While the workers
suffered only physical scratches, they are recovering
from the emotional "beating" they took, and trying to
find ways to apply some newfound insights to their work
in this Caribbean nation.

Haiti is still without law, despite Canadian and French
governmental help in training the country's first civilian
police force, says Dan Wiens, MCC Haiti co-director.  In
the absence of "law and order," people take matters into
their own hands.

On August 2, people in the neighborhood close to the
Wiens' home in Port-au-Prince caught a man stealing a
goat; he later admitted to belonging to a ring of petty
thieves operating in the area.  By the time MCC workers
Brent and Karen Hursey-McLaughlin and Philip and
Terry Phibbs Witmer, in a nearby guest house, heard the
commotion, a mob was dragging the thief along the road,
hitting him with the broad sides of their machetes,
stomping on his face with booted feet and burning him
with lit cigarettes, Wiens relates.

The two couples rushed to the scene where they saw the
crowd tie the goat thief tightly to a telephone post in
order to beat and stone him.  Alarmed, they positioned
themselves between the thief and the crowd.

There began a long and at times ugly three-hour stand-
off, while two of the MCC workers first went to try to
locate police -- the police at the station refused to come,
saying they were going off duty in a half hour -- and
then to pick up Wiens and MCC intern Paul Neufeld.

While the four men used their physical strength to push
back the crowd and to break blows aimed at the captured
man, Terry Phibbs Witmer and a Haitian friend set off
again looking for police or a United Nations vehicle --
any civil authority to intervene.    

As the situation grew nastier, Phibbs Witmer arrived
with a police car.  The officers questioned some
witnesses, handcuffed the accused thief and prepared to
take him away.  But the crowd wanted one of their
numbers to accompany the thief -- to make sure the
police really jailed him.  After years and years of abuse
and repression by police -- in the past run by the
military -- Haitians have no trust for civil authorities,
Wiens explains.

As the MCC workers pray and sort through the event,
one thing is clear to them.  Although international forces
have begun training and equipping a new civilian police
force, the job is far from over.  The MCC workers
question whether the 2,000 remaining United Nations
peace-keeping troops should leave Haiti at the end of
December, as scheduled.

"That we, in the capital city, had so much trouble finding
police willing to come, with all our advantages -- phones,
vehicles, acquaintances who know people in the police
force, our white skins -- speaks volumes," says Wiens. 
"Is it any wonder poor peasants don't even try?  With a
lack of civil authority, people take the course of
vigilante justice.  They are frustrated enough to want to
put people to death."

The MCC workers are also pondering what some in the
crowd told them -- that they are outsiders who do not
know Haitian ways and should therefore not intervene. 
Yet they do not regret their actions.  Instead, the MCC
team is beginning to think about doing more work with
Haitian churches "to bring out a stronger witness of
Christian peace," Wiens says.

Some Haitians in the crowd agreed with their actions,
Wiens says, and even helped to the extent they could. 
Some mothers said they didn't want their children
witnessing such brutality.  Wiens vividly recalls one man
who urged the others to stop taunting and hitting the
man.  "He wore a chain with a cross around his neck and
I knew he was Christian," Wiens relates.  Another
muscular Haitian man loosened the man's tied hands to
ease some of his pain.

Some of the MCC workers involved visited the jailed man
on Monday, taking him food and water; they wanted to
explain what motivated them to plead for his life.  Wiens
also plans to talk with people in the neighborhood about
the event and why he did what he did.

The workers were "impressed with the medical care the
thief had received and that the justice system is indeed
working better than we had thought," Wiens said.  The
police had recovered some of the items the man had
stolen and returned them to the community.  They also
arrested one of the thief's accomplices. 

The MCC workers hope these actions show the community
that the police are becoming increasingly capable.  And
they continue to hope the U.S. and Canadian
governments will persevere in supporting Haiti as it
builds a civilian-based, democratic society. 

Currently 15 MCC adult personnel are in Haiti, working
primarily in health, agriculture and social services. 
Wiens is from St. Adolphe, Man., and is a member of
Niverville (Man.) Mennonite Brethren Church.  Brent and
Karen Hursey-McLaughlin, from Morton, Ill., are members
of First United Methodist Church in Peoria, Ill.  Philip
and Terry Witmer, of Dayton, Va., are members of Zion
Hill Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, Va.  Paul Neufeld,
of Winnipeg, Man., is a member of St. Vital Mennonite
Brethren Church in Winnipeg.
                        -30-
Emily Will, MCC Communications
9august1996

Photos of MCC workers mentioned are available upon
request, with the exception of Paul Neufeld.