The funeral of a school principal tortured by soldiers two months ago prompted a stirring cry for justice from his friend, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
"I ask all the Haitian people to sue" their former oppressors, said Aristide, who at times wept during the funeral of Marcellus Denis. "Help us file charges against those who committed crimes."Denis was brutally beaten in Aristide's hometown of Port-Salut a week before the president's Oct. 15 return from exile.
Aristide paid to have the ailing, 54-year-old Denis flown 100 miles to the capital and hospitalized in a private clinic. But Denis died of internal injuries Dec. 6.
He was given an official funeral Tuesday at the capital's pink-and-cream colored cathedral. It was attended by foreign diplomats, six top officers of Haiti's now-emasculated army and about 250 other people, including Bishop Thomas Gumbleton of Detroit.
Dozens of U.S. soldiers stood guard around the cathedral, ringing parts of it with concertina wire and keeping crowds at a distance.
Looking at Denis' weeping relatives, Aristide said: "It is the entire nation that, through me, says we must continue our duty to not bring vengeance, but to bring justice to Haiti."
Aristide, ousted by a military coup in 1991, returned to power following a U.S.-led intervention in September that finally forced army rulers to leave.