In 2000, a Haitian court tried fifty-nine people for alleged roles in the massacre, of whom 37, including former coup leader Raoul Cédras, were tried in absentia.
They went house-to-house, beating and arresting residents, including children and the elderly, making some lie in open sewers.
[2] Soldiers also fired indiscriminately on citizens who were collecting firewood, and commandeered rowboats to attack fishing boats off-shore.
[6][7] Prosecutors were aided in preparing the case by Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon of the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux.
[6] The New York Times described the trial as a "landmark" case for Haiti, "a step in bringing to justice an elite tier of military and paramilitary officers and their cohorts for human rights abuses".
[8] By 2005, one of the sixteen imprisoned defendants had died, while the remaining fifteen had reportedly escaped from prison,[9] some in a mass jailbreak in Gonaives in which a bulldozer was driven through the walls of a prison[10] On May 3, 2005, the Supreme Court overturned the sentences, ruling that "the Criminal Tribunal of Gonaïves, having been established with the assistance of a jury, was not competent to rule the case".
[9] Emmanuel “Toto” Constant fled Haiti on foot into the Dominican Republic from which he was able to fly to the United States.
As reported by David Grann, in his article in The Atlantic Monthly “Giving ‘The Devil’ His due....” Constant worked with the CIA, by his own admission and that of U.S government sources.
[11] In 2006, Constant was ordered by a New York state court to pay $19 million in civil damages to three women who had been raped and tortured by the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haïti.
The suit was brought under the Alien Tort Statute seeking civil damages for the deaths of plaintiff Marie Jean’s husband, who was killed in the Raboteau Massacre, and the arbitrary detainment and torture of labor leader Lexiuste Cajuste.