Haiti - Politic : The Chief of police before the Senate Committee of Inquiry
Mario Andresol, the Chief of the Police Nationale d'Haiti (PNH), Marie Yolaine Gilles, assistant chief of the National Network for the Defence of Human Rights (RNDDH), and Rony Desroches, the Executive Director of the Civil Society Initiative (ISC), have been interviewed separately, Tuesday before the Senate Committee of Inquiry on the corruption within the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) and fraud recorded in the recent parliamentary elections.
Following this hearing, the Chief of Police wished to clarify that the Senate committee has "...mainly addressed security issues and cases that we had recorded. You must understand that I came here just in order to inform, I can not rule on the fraud, because we were not in the organization [of elections], but in security, with the elements we had in hand [...] We have made recommendations, that is to say that we ask as a police force for that there are no violence during of elections [...] all the problems there were in the elections, this is because in the polling stations or voting centers, there were not enough police to intervene with those who came to make the disorder [...] that caused a problem [...] there were more than 11,000 polling stations in the country, ... As Chief of Police, I had to split my forces, so in some places, there are only one or two policemen, strategically this was not reliable ... This was also the case in the red zone..."
For her part, Marie Yolaine Gilles indicated that she had also shared with the Commission the information held by the RNDDH on the CEP. However, she reported not having proof of widespread allegations of corruption against the electoral body.
A position that contrasts with that of Anthonal Mortimé, Executive Secretary of the Platform of Haitian Human Rights Organizations (POHDH), which on the margins of his hearings, had called the day before the Chamber of Deputies, to proceed with the indictment of the electoral advisors so that the Senate can be erected as a High Court of justice to try the advisors. Describing the elections of 28 November of "chaos", he recalls that the members of the CEP have always been the subject of serious accusations and they have failed in their mission which was to organize fair and credible elections in the country.
