President Salnave had a favourite regiment that he kept up to its full strength, and the men were fairly well disciplined. They were the only men in his pay who really looked like soldiers, but they were most insolent and overbearing. In order to strike terror into the town, Salnave ordered their colonel to march them down to the “Rue des Fronts Forts,” where the retail shopkeepers live, and there gave them leave to plunder. His little speech on this occasion has become a proverb in Hayti—“Mes enfans, pillez en bon ordre.” Whenever there were any political executions, the shooting squad was chosen from among them, and they have the discredit of having been employed to murder all the political prisoners confined in the jail at Port-au-Prince in December 1869.
The only battalions which, in time of peace, are kept up to their full strength, are those which are sent from their own districts to garrison distant towns, where those not actually on duty are allowed to look for work.
The Police.
Of all the institutions in Hayti, the police is certainly the worst conducted. There are regular commissaries employed under the prefects, but ordinary soldiers do the work of constables. In my time they went about the streets with a thick stick of heavy wood in their hands called a cocomacaque, and they used it in such a way as to confirm the remark that cruelty is an innate quality with the negro. Never did I see a Haytian of the upper classes step forward to remonstrate—probably he knew his countrymen too well—whilst the lower orders simply laughed and enjoyed the sight of punishment.
Every one arrested accused of a crime is immediately treated as if he were guilty, and the cocomacaque is brought to play on his head and shoulders. As an observer remarked, “In Hayti no prisoner has any right to be considered innocent.” A woman was arrested near my house accused of having killed the child of a neighbour from motives of jealousy. They said she was a loup garou, and as soon as the soldiers seized her they began to beat her. Before she reached the prison she was covered with wounds, and a relative who endeavoured to interfere shared the same fate.
One day, whilst at the American Consulate, I heard a disturbance outside. I took no notice at first, but presently looking out, saw the police raising a prostrate man. He had been insolent to his overseer, and a passing general ordered him to be taken to prison by the soldiers who were following him. They fell upon the man, and in a few moments he was a mass of bruises, and died before he reached his destination. A few weeks after, I saw a body of a negro lying near the same spot; this was that of a thief, on whom the police had executed summary justice with their clubs.
An English merchant saw two soldiers arrest a man accused of murder. As he resisted, they tied his feet together and dragged him along the streets, his head bumping against the stones. The Englishman remonstrated, but he was threatened with the same treatment. A negro arrested for stealing fowls had his arms bound behind him and a rope attached to one ankle, which was held by a policeman, while another kept close to the prisoner, beating him with his club, and as he darted forward to avoid a blow, the other would pull the rope, and the unfortunate accused would fall flat on his face. And all this done in public before the authorities, both civil and military, and no man raising his voice to stop such barbarous work! I have myself seen so many of these brutal scenes that I feel convinced that no account can be exaggerated.
As detectives these soldier-police are quite useless, and crime, unless openly committed, is rarely detected. Robbers have continued in their profession for years though perfectly well known, and no attempt has been made to capture them. There was one who was notorious for the impunity with which he had committed a long series of crimes. When he entered a house he intended to rob, he stripped, rubbed his body with oil, and crawled in, knife in hand. Unluckily for him, one night, being disturbed in his operations, he stabbed his assailant, who proved to be a Senator. It was all very well to rob and stab common people, but a Senator could not be thus treated with impunity; and the man, fearing no pursuit, was quietly captured in bed. The commissary of police, thinking that the fellow had had rope enough given him, and being sure that he would again escape from prison if sent there, had him taken out of town, and he was promptly shot, under pretence of having attempted to escape—la ley de fuga, as the Spaniards call it.
General Vil Lubin was, during the time of the Emperor Soulouque, in command of the arrondissement of Port-au-Prince; he proved efficient in his post, but he was a hard man, and one day ordered two soldiers to be beaten. Their comrades carried out the order so effectually that in a short time two bruised corpses were lying at the barrack door. Soulouque heard of it, and, furious at the treatment of two of his own guard, bitterly reproached Vil Lubin, and for months could not meet him without using the expression, “Rendez-moi mes soldats.” Yet how many hundreds met their death by his order! In both the civil and military administration brutality is the rule, not the exception.
There has been much talk of establishing a rural police, but nothing effective has come of it.