By: Jeremy Dupin - HaitiAnalysis.com

Traditionally in Haiti, the poorest suffer the most in conflict. Human rights violation are visible everywhere. In the General Hospital of Port-au-Prince, the largest medical center in the country, workers have been on strike for a month. According to the striking workers the Haitian government owes them five months of salary and the tuition fees of their children. They have asked for improved working conditions and for the government to begin with the process of negotiation.

Only those who are paralyzed or too incapacitated to move remain in the hospital. The emergency section is almost empty. When this reporter visited the emergency section only two people were present. Both Fritzner Maitre and Junior Jacques lay on beds with large locked chains attached to their feet. Maitre, a taxi cab driver, is twenty years old, and Jacques is a young teenager, age fifteen.

Maitre explained that he had been arrested in Mirbalais, after he got shot in his leg on his motorcycle by the police. Since then they brought him to the hospital for care but since his arrival the hospital workers have been on strike. Without care his suffering has grown as the gun shot festers inside his leg.

Joseph has several machete slashes in different places on his body and was arrested in Cabaret after he was accused of trying to burglarize a family. He laments that his family does not know his location. His only source of sustenance has been food brought by a religious group for the sick and incapacitated and Fritzner's family which has brought a few morsels of food. Those arrested by Haitian authorities or wounded and placed in hospitals face grueling circumstances. A November 2004 Miami University study found massive abuse against those in jail and hospitals in Port-au-Prince.

Evel Fanfan, the head of the human right organization AUMODH, explains that in general the lack of proper medical care and poor prison conditions is a common situation of human rights abuses in Haiti. He observes, "This is not the only case that we are facing, this is the result of phenomenal poverty and of a justice system which is not functioning." Other Haitian human rights groups, such as those within the recently formed coalition CONODDH, have decried ongoing human rights violations.

Photo Telesur 2007