a1693: Haitian human rights advocates, opposition, protest re-arrest of former military (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: kevin pina <kpinbox@hotmail.com>

Haitian human rights advocates, opposition, protest re-arrest of former
military dictator Prosper Avril
Tue Apr 16, 1:03 PM ET
By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - The government's arrest of former military dictator
Prosper Avril as he was released from prison is illegal and arbitrary, human
rights advocates and opposition politicians said Tuesday.


As Avril was leaving the National Penitentiary on Monday, heavily armed
police handcuffed the 65-year-old ex-general, shoved him into a van and
drove away.

Avril's release had been ordered by Haiti's Appeals Court, which ruled that
his arrest last year for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government was
arbitrary and illegal.

On Monday, government spokesman Jacques Maurice said Avril was being was
being charged with complicity in the slayings of about a dozen farmers
killed by soldiers in the west-coast settlement of Piate, about 80
kilometers (50 miles) northwest of the capital, while he was in power in
1990.

But the killings took place on March 13, 1990 — three days after a popular
uprising ousted Avril.

"That proves nothing if he gave the order before going into exile," Maurice
said Tuesday.

Human rights advocates blame the former dictator for rights violations
during his 18-month military rule, but not that at Piate, and they have
denounced the current government for keeping him in prison illegally.

"Arbitrary and illegal, and politically motivated, it stirs up all our bad
memories of past dictatorships," said Viles Alizar, program director of the
Haitian Coalition for Human Rights.

The arrest warrant was drawn up in west-coast St. Marc, outside the
Port-au-Prince jurisdiction, and its execution was illegal, Alizar said.

"We are face to face with judicial madness," said Gerard Gourgue, a former
law professor and head of the Convergence opposition alliance that has been
at loggerheads with President Jean-Bertrand Aristide since flawed local and
legislative elections two years ago.

Avril was chief of presidential security under dictator Jean-Claude
Duvalier, until Duvalier's ouster in 1986. He seized power in September
1988, ousting then-dictator Lt. Gen. Henry Namphy.

Police first arrested Avril on May 26, 2001, at a restaurant where he was
signing copies of his newly published Black Book of Insecurity, in which he
alleges Aristide's party tolerated street crime and political assassinations
from 1995 to 2000. Government officials deny the accusations.

(mn-kd/maf)




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