22036: Severe: Newsday- Article on Annette Auguste (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Constantin Severe <csevere@hotmail.com>

Marines arrest Haitian folksinger

By Ron Howell
Staff Writer

May 23, 2004, 2:58 PM EDT


A popular folk singer who lived for more than 20 years in Brooklyn has been
arrested in Haiti by U.S. marines who accuse her of plotting against
American troops there.

But relatives of the woman, Annette Auguste, known professionally as So
Anne, say she did noting unlawful and they accuse Marines of using grossly
excessive force -- including her two pet dogs and arresting and handcuffing
her five-year-old grandson.

"It seemed like they were going after Osama bin Laden or something," said
her son Reginald Auguste, who lives in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn.

In fact -- in what at first blush seems like an odd accusation in Haiti --
U.S. Marines are alleging that Auguste may have met with local Muslims to
organize attacks on U.S. and other international forces in the country.

"I can't specifically get into intelligence information that we have about
activities that she and others were involved in . . . but a mosque is at
least mentioned in some of these activities," said Marine Lt. Col. Dave
Lapan.

Lapan also confirmed the family's account that Marines used explosive
devices to break down gates to Auguste's home and that 11 people were
arrested, but he denied that several children were handcuffed along with the
adults.

He also said that, as far as he knew, Marines killed one dog, not two.

Within hours after they were taken to a Marine base in Port-au-Prince,
everyone was released but Auguste, whose nickname So Anne means Sister Anne
in Creole.

U.S. Marines turned So Anne over to Haiti's U.S.-backed interim government,
which alleges she paid supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
to attack demonstrators at a large anti-Aristide protest in December.

One of those arrested with Auguste on May 10 was Raymonde Auguste, her older
sister, who is a U.S. citizen, her son said in Brooklyn last week.

Raymonde Auguste worked at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn for more than
20 years before retiring and returning to Haiti several years ago, said her
son Claude Luly.

So Anne left her home in Brooklyn and went back to Haiti ten years ago,
after the return to power of Aristide, who had been ousted in a coup several
years before.

So Anne's ties to Aristide are at the heart of the allegations against her.
So Anne, in addition to being a folk singer, is a voodoo priest with a large
following among poor Haitians in New York and in Haiti.

When she lived in East Flatbush in the early 1990s, she would sing songs at
massive gatherings supporting the return of Aristide to power. She once
entertained 25,000 Haitians with a backup band of traditional drummers and
guitarists on Central Park's Great Lawn.

After U.S. troops dispatched by President Bill Clinton restored Aristide to
power in the fall of 1994, So Anne went back and became an unofficial
liaison between Aristide's Lavalas Party and the poor and working-class
people of Port-au-Prince.

Aristide's critics have accused So Anne and others of using strong-arm
tactics against political opponents, and of using their influence to get
rich.

Haitian critics have written articles saying So Anne was Aristide's person
mambo, or voodoo priestess, and that she used "black magic" to convince poor
Haitians she could harm Aristide's political opponents.

So Anne's relatives say she was in fact a mambo but argued that she used her
status to cure and otherwise help her supplicants.

"In America, they believe that voodoo is evil, but in Haiti half the
population practices voodoo," said her son Reginald, 28, who said he lives
in a basement apartment in Flatbush and organizes pay-to-attend parties to
earn a living.

Her nephew Claude, 30, who lives in Canarsie and is a collecting agent with
the city Transit Authority, said he is angry about the way Marines treated
his relatives. They will seek damages from the U.S. government, he said.

According to So Anne's companion in Haiti, Wilfrid (cq) Lavaud, the singer
currently has two circulating albums, "Katye Morin," about the women of a
village in Haiti, and "Gade Yon Zetwal," about star-gazing.

Lavaud, who was arrested with So Anne but released, said the arresting
marines seemed to believe the singer was involved with local Muslims.

"They said she used to meet with the Muslims to plan something against them
[the Americans]," Lavaud said.

He denied there was any such connection. "She never had any relationship
with them at all, and they didn't have any relationship with her," Lavaud
said.

Relatives said Marines killed two of So Anne's dogs, Ramram, a female, and
Party Cool.

One of the explosive devices used to breach the gates of the house just
after midnight on May 10, blew the head off Party Cool, Lavaud said. Lavaud
also said that a five-year-old grandson of So Anne's, Anel Shameer Samedy,
was handcuffed for six hours before he was released around 6 a.m.

Aristide went into exile on Feb. 29, signing a letter of resignation under
pressure from U.S. diplomats. A U.S.-backed interim government is running
the country pending elections. Many of Aristide's supporters have gone into
hiding.

Aristide had left-wing political tendencies and for years was opposed by the
United States and the upper-classes in Haiti. As poverty worsened in the
country, the opposition against him became more widespread.

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