22525: Levy: AHP reports on the situation of Yvon Neptune - translation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Mike Levy <mlhaiti@cornernet.com>


AHP News - June 27, 2004 - English translation (Unofficial)
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Former Prime Minister Neptune goes to the police after hearing that a
warrant has been issued for him
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Port-au-Prince, June 27, 2004  (AHP)- Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune
traveled to the police Sunday after a pro-government radio station in
Port-au-Prince broadcast Saturday that a warrant had been issued against him
.

M. Neptune was led to the National Penitentiary by a police patrol which
came to pick him up at his home.

The former prime minister said he believed that this was the best thing to
do, considering that he had done nothing wrong.

In broadcasting news of the existence of the warrant on Saturday, the radio
station emphasized that it was issued a few days after Mr. Neptune made
remarks during a radio program on June 21st in which he offered a negative
assessment of the first 100 days of the provisional government of Gérard
Latortue.

In those remarks, Yvon Neptune deplored that members of the interim
government were charging ahead with an anti-Lavalas policy and showing no
interest in governing according to the law, particularly with respect to
political cases.

Shortly after the sudden departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on
February 29, the National Coalition for Haitian Rights (NCHR), a human
rights organization,  stated that Mr. Neptune had ordered a massacre
allegedly perpetrated in mid-February in the Saint-Marc area at a place
called Assierie (or La Scierie), against supporters of the Platform of the
ex-opposition.

The director of NCHR, Pierre Espérance, had indicated that 50 people were
killed during what he labeled as a massacre.

When asked about the absence of bodies, Mr. Espérance said that they had
been devoured by hungry dogs. "As for the bones, they suffered the same
fate", he said.

At the same time, delegations of foreign journalists as well as members of
international human rights organizations who traveled to the scene stated
that they were unable to find any evidence of a massacre.

" Only the bodies of five individuals were discovered, but it was impossible
to determine the precise circumstances  that led to their deaths", said some
of the investigators.

However Saturday's radio broadcast indicated that there are other charges
against Yvon Neptune, who has been in hiding since mid-March following the
installation of the Latortue government.

According to the radio station, some individuals have accused the former
prime minister of involvement in the fire  at the public market of Gonaïves
during the night of June 15.

The broadcast also reported that interim prime Minister Gérard Latortue
accused Yvon Neptune on Friday of having issued a call to violence in his
most recent remarks, judging that the term "mobilization" is synonymous with
violence, when spoken by Lavalas.

Yvon Neptune had on June 21st called upon "senior officials and members of
Fanmi Lavalas to continue to encourage unity and to mobilize all their
skills with a view to enabling the party to continue to be a force in the
context of the struggle for the advancement of democracy in the country".

Mr. Neptune had also denounced the fact that those who are guilty of crimes
and massacres against the population as well as the people behind them, as
well as counterfeiters and experts in money-laundering, walk the streets
with complete impunity.

Many high-level officials and members of Fanmi Lavalas have been arrested
since the events of February 29 including former Interior Minister Jocelerme
Privert,  political activist Annettte Auguste, former member of the lower
house of Parliament, Amanus Mayette, and former mayor Harold Sévère.

Several hundred people have complained of being dismissed from their jobs in
the civil service due to their presumed membership in Fanmi Lavalas.
Hundreds of others have gone into hiding in Port-au-Prince and in the
provinces.

They accuse supporters of the interim government of seeking to impose the
rule of intellectual exclusivity in which only a single line of thought is
tolerated and of wishing to silence all who express points of view that are
different from theirs.

AHP June 27 - 12:35 PM
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