Between 1997 and 2000 the Haiti Support Group backed the Campaign, launched by Haitian grassroots organisations, with supporters in over 30 countries, that demanded the return of approximately 160,000 pages of documents (including “trophy photos” of human rights victims with their torturers, as well as video and audiocassettes) removed from Haitian military (FADH) and paramilitary (FRAPH) offices by U.S. troops in 1994.

These documents were the legal property of Haiti under national and international law. They were regarded as important for Haitians to establish the truth about the 1991-94 military dictatorship, and to prepare cases against those responsible for the regime’s human rights violations. See Haiti Briefing No 30, 33, 34

The Haiti Support Group participated in the Campaign by collecting signatures for an international petition demanding that the United States government return the full and uncensored documents to Haiti. The petition was signed by thousands of individuals and organisations all over the world.

For the text of an article about the Documents Campaign by Brian Concannon of the International Lawyers’ Office in Port-au-Prince see Concannon article