20933: (Chamberlain) Haiti ex-PM fears for life, seeks U.S. help (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 29 (Reuters) - Former Haitian Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune, in hiding after a bloody revolt toppled his
government last month, said rebels are threatening to murder him and he
wants U.S. protection.
     Neptune, who was appointed by ousted former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, is moving from one friend's house to the next in secrecy. His
home was burned down during last month's uprising in the poorest country in
the Americas.
     "U.S. officials and everybody else know the rebels have said they will
come and arrest me, and they know the rebels don't really mean arrest,"
Neptune told Reuters by cellular telephone from his hide-out in a weekend
interview.
     "I have been left without security, so I have to take personal
measures to protect myself," he said, referring to his decision to go into
hiding. "I'm not afraid to die, but I don't want to die under these
circumstances."
     While Aristide was whisked away into exile by U.S. security officials
on Feb. 29, Neptune is among dozens of his Lavalas Family Party supporters
on a blacklist issued by the new government banning them from leaving the
country.
     The government says the list is a precautionary measure to prevent
those named from fleeing while the government investigates accusations of
graft and mismanagement.
     "I am very concerned about my name being on the list, because I don't
think they want to know the truth. They are persecuting us," Neptune said.
     Several of Aristide's associates and an aide have been arrested by
police on vague charges of "ill-doing," often without warrants.
     Neptune said he cannot trust the local police force -- which is in
disarray -- to protect him, because many rebels and former Haitian soldiers
who led the uprising that overthrew Aristide's government are working
closely with the police.
     "When we see the police mix with the former military and rebels, who
had been asking for my arrest, there is no way I could trust them," he
said.
     Neptune said his safety was the responsibility of U.S. Marines leading
a 3,500-strong U.N.-sanctioned multinational force that is keeping an
uneasy peace.
     After Aristide left the country, Neptune holed up in his elegant
Port-au-Prince ministerial offices for two weeks because he had nowhere
else to go. He went into hiding the day his successor, Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue, arrived in Haiti to take office on March 10.
     "They (the new government) are only pursuing our (Lavalas) people, and
not the rebels who committed crimes," he said.
     Neptune said he refused to leave Haiti like Aristide immediately after
the uprising because he had had enough of exile after spending decades in
the United States during the brutal Duvalier family dictatorship.
     He said he wants to take a break from politics, revert to his trade as
an architect and continue a literacy drive that former slum priest Aristide
started in 2001 -- but Haiti's 200-year track record of political murders
and thuggery is against him.