Right-wing Puerto Rican governor Luis Fortuño is now trying to control damage from a Sept. 8 report by the US Justice Department condemning unconstitutional conduct by the island's police force. The report cited "continued civil rights violations," "the failure to implement meaningful reforms," discrimination against Dominicans, and failure to report and investigate alleged sex crimes and domestic violence. The US government's criticisms followed repeated charges of police brutality from Puerto Rican student protesters and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Chanting "This has to change," some 200 Haitians marked World Day for Decent Work on Oct. 7 with a march to the National Industrial Parks Company (Sonapi), where most of Port-au-Prince's low-wage assembly plants are located. Some of the marchers had their faces covered to keep from being identified; managers at three Sonapi plants fired a total of six officers of the newly formed Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA) in the last week of September. Police agents from the Departmental Unit for the Maintenance of Order (UDMO) were stationed at the industrial park to keep the marchers from accessing the plants.

The Haitian Senate was scheduled to start discussions on President Michel Martelly's latest nominee for prime minister, Garry Conille, on Oct. 3. The Chamber of Deputies voted 89-0 on Sept. 16 in favor of the nomination after Parliament rejected Martelly's two previous choices. The government has been administered by acting prime minister Jean-Max Bellerive, a holdover from the previous administration, ever since Martelly took office in May.

The management of two Port-au-Prince apparel factories owned by wealthy and powerful Haitians—Gerald Apaid and former presidential candidate Charles Henri Baker—fired a total of five officers of a new garment workers union between Sept. 23 and Sept. 25, a little more than a week after the union announced its formation. Johny Deshommes, a spokesperson for the Textile and Garment Workers Union (SOTA), lost his job at Apaid's Genesis S.A. factory on Sept. 23 when he asked to be allowed to go home because of a fever. Three other members of SOTA's executive committee, Brevil Claude, Wilner Eliacint and Cénatus Vilaire, were fired on Sept. 25 when they tried to meet with the human resources director to discuss Deshommes' firing; Genesis management brought in two police agents to intimidate and threaten the unionists before they were allowed to leave. SOTA's secretary, Mitial Rubin, was fired from Baker's One World Apparel after he had leafleted workers outside the factory.

On Sept. 8 Haitian president Michel Martelly announced the formation of a Presidential Advisory Council for Economic Development and Investment as part of a "strategic vision" that he claims will create 500,000 jobs over the next three years. The council is to help his administration "remove the brakes on investment to free up Haitian growth," Martelly said. The council's two co-directors will be former US president Bill Clinton (1993-2001) and Laurent Lamothe, the president of the South Africa-based telecommunications company Global Voice Group. Three former heads of state are on the council in addition to Clinton: former Spanish prime minister José María Aznar (1996-2004), former Jamaican prime minister Percival Patterson (1992-2006) and former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe Vélez (2002-2010). Aznar and Uribe are both rightists who, like Clinton, are strong proponents of neoliberal economic policies; Patterson is a moderate social democrat.

The US Department of Justice (DoJ) on Sept. 8 announced its findings from a three-year investigation that the Puerto Rico Police Department (PRPD) has engaged in repeated unlawful and unconstitutional behavior. The investigation, which began in June 2008, uncovered the PRPD use of excessive and unreasonable force, failure to protect First Amendment rights, and unconstitutional stops, searches and arrests. In its executive summary report (PDF), the DoJ acknowledged that the rights violations corresponded with a period of increased crime and pressure on the PRPD. However, such circumstances did not excuse the misconduct:

Puerto Rican independence activist Hilton Fernández Diamante has charged that in June, US federal agents planted an electronic device in his car while it was parked in the apartment tower complex where he lives in Trujillo Alto, south of San Juan. Photographs, an eyewitness account and statements by the apartment complex's management confirm that people who identified themselves as Puerto Rican police agents were in the parking area while Fernández Diamante was in New York to meet with a lawyer. Told about the suspicious activity on his return, Fernández Diamante called the Puerto Rican police's bomb squad on June 15. Police agents evacuated the area and removed the device.

As of Sept. 2 it appeared that some of the 1,100 Uruguayan troops in the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) were about to be repatriated because of accusations of sex abuse at a base in the southern coastal town of Port-Salut. Eliane Nabaa, who handles communication and information for the United Nations military and police occupation force in Haiti, told the Haitian internet news service AlterPresse on Sept. 1 that repatriation was a possibility. On Sept. 2 an Uruguayan website said the soldiers would be sent home in the coming week.