Assassination of Me Mireille Durocher Bertin

Aside from the death of Minister of Justice Guy Malary, former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's first term in office during the 1990s was shadowed in the assassination of another heroic Haitian personality advocating for change and better governance. This adds to the long list of the Aristide and his supporters' involvement in various extrajudicial killings.

Mireille Durocher Bertin was a popular Haitian lawyer in the 1990s for her human rights advocacies and her active protest against the reinstatement of Aristide as Haiti's President, as pushed by former U.S. President Bill Clinton and the U.S. government. She was a well-known outspoken critic of the former president and his government, being a member of the right wing of the then divided Haitian society.

On the 28th of March, 1995, in broad daylight, Mireille Durocher Bertin was shot dead while in a white Subaru with her driver by several gunmen who were in a red Mitsubishi jeep who surrounded Bertin's car and were shooting from both sides, after a visit to the U.S. military's Camp Democracy headquarters in Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. She was pregnant and had four young children. The people behind the lawyer's killing were immediately pointed to Aristide and his men, but have never been proven, up until now.

Despite his support for Aristide, Bill Clinton immediately ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct an investigation on the murder of Mireille Durocher Bertin. Last November, FBI information regarding the people behind the killing was released. The list involved twelve individuals who were high officials during Aristide's presidency.

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Read more: Jean Bertrand Aristide, assassination, Mireille Durocher Bertin, Security Crime Law and Order

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