23533: This Week in Haiti 22:32 10/20/2004 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
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                       HAITI PROGRES
           "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                 * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                 October 20 - 26, 2004
                     Vol. 22, No. 32

FATHER JEAN-JUSTE ARRESTED:
DESPERATE DE FACTO GOVERNMENT STEPS UP REPRESSION AND VITRIOL

Haiti's de facto authorities lashed out with growing blindness and
brutality this past week, arresting priests, repressing protests and
laying siege to rebellious slums.

As outcry has grown, de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue accused
South Africa of backing the Haitian peoples' growing revolt.

On Oct. 13, heavily-armed men dressed as ninjas surrounded the St.
Claire's Catholic Church in the Delmas sector of Port au Prince and
demanded to see the priest, Father Gérard Jean-Juste, who was in the
presbytery distributing food to about 600 hungry neighborhood children,
as he does every Wednesday and Sunday. Soon uniformed policemen - also
masked - arrived and arrested Jean-Juste in the church, hand-cuffing and
roughly handling him. The priest was cut by glass when dragged from the
church.

The police fired their weapons in the air to disperse the crowds of
onlookers and the priest's supporters that gathered outside the church.
Some reports say up to three people may have been wounded.

Jean-Juste was then taken to the Pétionville jail where he is being held
in a steamy, crowded cell of 18 people with a single bucket for a
toilet. Mice scurry over prisoners as they sleep on the ground.

The arrest was carried out without a warrant or charges, which are
supposed to be made within 48 hours of an arrest. "There are no formal
charges against Fr. Jean-Juste," wrote Loyola University law professor
Bill Quigley, who flew to Haiti to act as Jean-Juste's lawyer, in an
Oct. 18 post on the CommonDreams website."He has not seen a judge, and
it is not clear he ever will. No judge will review his case because it
is 'too political.' The police wrote down that he is jailed for
'disturbing the peace.' The unelected government of Haiti says he was
'aiding the uprising' and that they have all the evidence they need to
hold him."

Still Haitian authorities have reasons - too many reasons - for the
arrest. Police spokeswoman Jessie Cameau Coicou said that the police
originally "didn't intend to arrest the priest but simply to question
him" about recent violence in Port-au-Prince. That changed, she said,
when "his partisans began to throw rocks at the police and break car
windows."

De facto Justice Minister Bernard Gousse came with a different story. He
tried to link Jean-Juste to the population's recent acts of armed
self-defense, without offering the slightest proof. "He is not the only
person to be arrested in the framework of our investigations into the
carrying out of terrorist acts as well as into who is organizing,
financing and distributing the arms to carry out these acts," Gousse
said. "Several witnesses and leads make us suspect that Father
Jean-Juste actually participated in the organization of these terrorist
acts."

The charge is ludicrous. Father Jean-Juste is one of Haiti's foremost
proponents of spirited but non-violent resistance. During the 1980s, he
organized the Miami Haitian community in giant demonstrations to defend
the rights of Haitian refugees, founding the Veye Yo (Watch Them)
popular organization and leading the Haitian Refugee Center to
international prominence.

Since his arrest, daily demonstrations emanating from the Veye Yo
headquarters on 54th Street in Little Haiti have rocked Miami. In New
York on Oct. 18, the Committee Against Repression in Haiti held an
emergency picket of some 30 people in front of the Haitian Consulate in
mid-town Manhattan.

Two other priests were also arrested last week, but later released.

Jean-Juste's Haitian lawyer Mario Joseph of the International Lawyers
Office summed up his client's arrest as part of a "vast persecution
campaign undertaken by the interim regime against its political
adversaries."

This persecution campaign expanded on Oct. 15 when thousands of
demonstrators took to the streets of popular neighborhoods like
Martissant and Belair to mark the 10th anniversary of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's return to Haiti after the Sep. 30, 1991 coup
against him.

That same afternoon, armored police units backed by troops of the United
Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) entered Belair, coalescing
protestors. "Heavy gunfire erupted as the police reportedly fired shots
to disperse the crowd," the Haiti Information Project reported. "The
police were then forced to withdraw as unidentified gunmen returned fire
from surrounding buildings in a thunderous volley."

To undermine the demonstrations that day, the Haitian bourgeoisie had
called for businesses to close their doors as part of a "day of protest
against terrorism." Many stores, banks and gas stations did shutter up.
The U.S. Embassy also adhered to the call, closing its doors for the
day. MINUSTAH troops were deployed in intersections throughout the city.

Even with such repression, panic has gripped Haiti's coup elite. Despite
the death of their secretary general Gérard Pierre-Charles at a hospital
in Havana, Cuba on Oct. 10, the pro-coup Organization of Struggling
People (OPL) found the time to issue urgent calls for the police and
occupation troops to crush the growing rebellion. "The present
government must prove its firmness toward these men, increase police
effectiveness by giving them more guns, and establish a plan of action
to attack these scoundrels and criminals to neutralize them," said OPL
spokesman Paul Denis. (Not coincidentally, the U.S. government has now
lifted an embargo on the sale or shipment of arms to Haiti which has
been in effect since 1991.)

Konakom leader Micha Gaillard called for a broad front to counter
"Lavalas barbarism" while neo-Duvalierist politician Leslie Manigat
demanded "the repressive firmness of republican legality."

Meanwhile, de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue lashed out at
President Aristide, in exile in South Africa, calling him "the symbol of
violence." Latortue also warned South African President Thabo Mbeki that
he was "taking a big risk" by hosting Aristide, who, with First Lady
Mildred Trouillot-Aristide, is now teaching at the University of South
Africa.

"No respectable president would allow a person in his territory to
organize violence in another country," Latortue barked. "Mr. Mbeki is
not respecting international law."

South Africa shot back a sharp rebuke. "The South African government
rejects with contempt the attack on the integrity of President Mbeki and
dismisses the insinuation that its territory is being used as a
springboard by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to destabilize Haiti
through violent means," said South Africa's Deputy Minister of Foreign
Affairs Aziz Pahad. "No evidence exists to back up the claim that
President Aristide is involved in any activities aimed at the
destabilization of Haiti."

Pahad said that Latortue was using Mbeki and South Africa "as a
scapegoat for failure by the interim Haitian authorities to bring about
peace and stability to Haiti."

To back-up Latortue, OPL spokesman Sauveur Pierre Etienne, called on the
de facto government to "judge" Aristide. "The day the government here
assumes its responsibility and puts out a warrant against Mr. Aristide,
you will see him quiet down," he said. "He'll be cool."

Such provocative comments are only fueling the Haitian people's anger.
As Haitians marked the 198th anniversary of the assassination of
founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines on Oct. 17, many remembered of
his revolutionary teachings. "The imperialists and their lackeys have
desecrated our bicentennial this 2004," said Wilson Bernier, a
demonstrator in front of New York's Haitian Consulate on Oct. 18. "I
think that 2004 is now starting to turn into 1804."

All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED.
Please credit Haiti Progres.

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