RNDDH report on the situation of tension at Grand-Goâve

Grand-Goâve lies fifty-two kilometres south-west of Port-au-Prince, has more than 125,000 inhabitants across seven communal sections and covers 264.23 square kilometres. The tension the report investigates goes back to the 2010 and 2011 elections, when the results proclaimed for the deputy's seat were violently contested and activity in the commune came to a halt: one man was proclaimed deputy and the outgoing deputy, a candidate for his own succession, disputed the count. The network interviewed religious, municipal, judicial, police and United Nations authorities, both the former and the sitting deputy and their supporters, victims and residents. It finds a conflict fed on both sides, in which people who have nothing to do with it, including users of national road 2, have been the casualties.

The protagonists violate the rights to physical and mental integrity, to security and to private property guaranteed by the Universal Declaration and the amended 1987 Constitution, with the active complicity of the police and the laxity of the courts. It also holds the President directly responsible for the situation, on the ground that replacing elected officials with interim executive agents left the commune without legitimate authority, and that holding elections would have given it one. It asks for a negotiated solution before the situation degrades further, prosecution of those involved on both sides, completion of the Inspection Générale's inquiry into the conduct of the police at Grand-Goâve including a named divisional inspector, more officers in the commune, transfer to the courts of the files of officers guilty of torture, and the holding of the partial senatorial and local elections.