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Orga­ni­zación No Guber­na­men­tal con estatuto con­sul­tivo ante el ECOSOC y

rep­re­sentación per­ma­nente ante la ONU de Nueva York y Ginebra

Jan­u­ary 4, 2010

H.E. Jose Miguel Insulza

Secretary-General

Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States

17th Street & Con­sti­tu­tion Ave., N.W.

Wash­ing­ton, D.C. 20006

Re: OAS Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Flawed Hait­ian Elections

Dear Secretary-General Insulza:

We are writ­ing to urge the Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States (OAS) to refuse to sup­port the Par­lia­men­tary elec­tions in Haiti sched­uled for Feb­ru­ary and March 2010, by send­ing observers or other means, unless the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment demon­strates that the elec­tions will be fair and inclu­sive. More­over, we urge the OAS to ful­fill its man­date to encour­age the Hait­ian author­i­ties to estab­lish, “as soon as pos­si­ble,” a Per­ma­nent Elec­toral Coun­cil in com­pli­ance with Haiti’s 1987 Constitution.1 If it is not pos­si­ble to estab­lish a Per­ma­nent Coun­cil in time for the sched­uled elec­tions, those elec­tions should be held by a pro­vi­sional coun­cil cho­sen accord­ing to arti­cle 289 of Haiti’s Constitution.

Haiti’s Pro­vi­sional Elec­toral Coun­cil (Con­seil Elec­toral Pro­vi­soire or CEP) has dis­qual­i­fied 14 of the 69 par­ties that reg­is­tered for the upcom­ing elec­tions, includ­ing Haiti’s most pop­u­lar party, Fanmi Lavalas (FL). The Coun­cil has not pro­vided a com­pre­hen­sive expla­na­tion for the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tions of these par­ties — all of which are rec­og­nized by Haiti’s Min­istry of Jus­tice — and the par­tial expla­na­tions it has offered lack a sound legal basis. For exam­ple, the CEP claims that the man­date sent from South Africa by for­mer Pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide, the exiled leader of Fanmi Lavalas (FL), is not authen­tic. But FL pre­sented an orig­i­nal man­date, authen­ti­cated by a Hait­ian notary, and Dr. Aris­tide sent a fax of the man­date directly to the CEP and con­firmed its authen­tic­ity in an inter­view with a Hait­ian radio sta­tion. The Coun­cil has not stated any legal author­ity for dis­al­low­ing the man­date, but the doc­u­ment clearly com­plies with the flex­i­ble man­date require­ments of Hait­ian law, set forth in arti­cle 1749 of Haiti’s Civil Code.

Polit­i­cal par­ties across the spec­trum have con­demned the polit­i­cal par­ties’ exclu­sion as ille­gal, as have Hait­ian human rights groups and lawyers’ orga­ni­za­tions. Vir­tu­ally no orga­ni­za­tion in

1 Sup­port for the Strength­en­ing of Polit­i­cal Sta­bil­ity and for Socioe­co­nomic Devel­op­ment in Haiti, Orga­ni­za­tion of Amer­i­can States Gen­eral Assem­bly Res­o­lu­tion AG/RES. 2424(XXXVIII-O/08).

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Haiti, other than the rul­ing party, its allies, and mem­bers of the inter­na­tional com­mu­nity sup­port the exclusion.

The CEP not only lacks a good rea­son for its deci­sion, it also lacks legit­i­macy to do so. As you know, the Coun­cil is a Pro­vi­sional Coun­cil cho­sen by Haiti’s Pres­i­dent, René Pré­val, from nom­i­nees pre­sented by civil soci­ety orga­ni­za­tions also cho­sen by Pres­i­dent Pré­val. This selec­tion of an elec­toral coun­cil vio­lates Haiti’s 1987 Con­sti­tu­tion, which requires an inde­pen­dent Per­ma­nent Coun­cil, pre­cisely to avoid the type of manip­u­la­tion that the polit­i­cal par­ties’ exclu­sion represents.

The unjus­ti­fied exclu­sion of the polit­i­cal par­ties vio­lates Haitians’ right to vote in free and fair elec­tions as guar­an­teed by Haiti’s Con­sti­tu­tion and inter­na­tional law, includ­ing Arti­cle 20 of the OAS’ Amer­i­can Dec­la­ra­tion of the Rights and Duties of Man and Arti­cle 23 of the OAS’ Amer­i­can Con­ven­tion on Human Rights. We fear that send­ing OAS observers to elec­tions that are designed from the out­set to frus­trate free vot­ing will be inter­preted as a sign of OAS sup­port. We also note that the Inter-American Demo­c­ra­tic Char­ter declares that the “essen­tial ele­ments of rep­re­sen­ta­tive democ­racy” include “the hold­ing of peri­odic, free, and fair elec­tions … as an expres­sion of the sov­er­eignty of the people.”

Democ­racy and devel­op­ment in Haiti can only pro­ceed through fair, inclu­sive elec­tions. The OAS refused to send mon­i­tors to observe elec­tions held in Hon­duras in Novem­ber 2009 because con­di­tions for free and fair elec­tions clearly did not exist. The sit­u­a­tion in Haiti presents an equally clear vio­la­tion of rights guar­an­teed in Inter-American regional instru­ments and the OAS should refuse to sup­port, in any way, the cur­rent elec­tions unless the CEP includes all properly-registered polit­i­cal par­ties and runs fair, cred­i­ble elections.

The Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion of Jurists, and its affil­i­ates in all coun­tries of the Amer­i­can con­ti­nent, will con­tinue to mon­i­tor the orga­ni­za­tion of elec­tions in Haiti, the estab­lish­ment of the Per­ma­nent Elec­toral Coun­cil, and the OAS par­tic­i­pa­tion in the elec­tions. We would be happy to answer any ques­tions you might have about this let­ter, and look for­ward to hear­ing from you about OAS efforts to ensure that Haiti’s upcom­ing elec­tions are wor­thy of OAS support.

Sin­cerely,

Vanessa Ramos

Pres­i­dent

(VRamos1565@aol.com

131 E. 83 St., 6A, NY, NY 10028)

cc: Ricardo Anto­nio Silva Seit­en­fus, OAS Rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Haiti

Duly Bru­tus, Per­ma­nent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive of Haiti to the OAS