23350: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Exiles accuse Haitian leaders of repression (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Thu, Oct. 07, 2004




SOUTH FLORIDA


Exiles accuse Haitian leaders of repression

South Florida Haitians denounced the arrest of three senators in Haiti,
saying the U.S.-backed government is repressive.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES

jcharles@herald.com


South Florida supporters of former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
say the arrest of three pro-Aristide senators over the weekend is illegal
and part of a campaign by the interim government to silence anyone who
supports the exiled president.

Members of Aristide's Lavalas Family Party also say Haitian police and armed
gangs -- not pro-Aristide protesters -- are to blame for escalating violence
in pro-Aristide protests in Port-au-Prince. Fourteen people have been
killed, including four police officers, three of whom were beheaded.

''There is currently no place in Haiti for political dissent or discussion.
Anyone seen as an Aristide supporter is in danger,'' Farah Juste, a
well-known Haitian singer and pro-Aristide activist, said during a news
conference Tuesday at the Little Haiti storefront offices of Veye Yo, a
pro-Aristide group.

''It is ironic that the very government that came to power on the pretext of
eliminating political repression is engaging in the very act it condemns,''
Juste said.

Aristide was ousted in February after a revolt threatened to reach Haiti's
capital. He insists he didn't resign, and his supporters want him restored
as president.

Before Aristide's ouster, opponents now in the Haitian government accused
him of repression and claimed his supporters were infiltrating their
protests to instigate violence.

Haitian government officials said this week that the three politicians who
were arrested -- including Senate President Ivon Feuille -- were suspected
of being ''intellectual authors'' of violence that erupted Sept. 30 during
pro-Aristide demonstrations.

They also alleged that assault weapons were found in the senators' vehicles.

Lavalas members as well as Feuille's ex-wife, Marie Feuille, dismissed the
government's claims as bogus.

Marie Feuille told The Herald on Monday that her former husband was being
held in a cell with six people.

''They didn't tell him when he will be seen by a judge, and so far he's just
in there. He's always talking about nonviolence,'' she said.

On Tuesday, Gilbert Angervil, a former deputy in Gonve, said he came to
Miami fearing that he would be next on the government's arrest list. He
dismissed government claims that Aristide loyalists are trying to derail
possible elections in 2005.

''There is no government in Haiti, just an army of kidnappers,'' Angervil
said. ``People don't accept the de facto government.''

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