23558: (Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Commentary Jailed Priest urges return of Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Oct. 19, 2004

COMMENTARY

Jailed priest urges return of Aristide

JIM DEFEDE
jdefede@herald.com

The jail cell where the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste is being held was designed to
hold no more than a handful of prisoners. Yet there are 18 people in his
cell, including a 14-year-old girl who was arrested over the weekend.

There are no beds and no water with which to wash or bathe. The one toilet
is nothing more than a bucket in a corner of the cell.

''At night, Father sleeps on the floor and tries to keep the mice off of
him,'' said Bill Quigley, a Loyola University law professor who is helping
represent the embattled Catholic priest.

He has visited Jean-Juste twice in jail, once on Saturday and again on
Monday.

''He is a remarkable man, and he is in great spirits,'' Quigley said. ''But
he is in a very bad situation.''

Quigley met Jean-Juste for the first time several weeks ago when he toured
his impoverished parish while traveling with the Catholic peace group Pax
Christi USA.

''Father Jean-Juste was the most impressive person we met in Haiti,''
Quigley said. ''He was helping his people, feeding the children of his
parish.''

Last Wednesday, Haitian police, many of them wearing masks, came looking for
the controversial priest who has been a critic of the current government and
an outspoken supporter of the democratically elected president of Haiti,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was ousted through a coup earlier this year.

Based on his conversations with Jean-Juste as well as his own visit to the
church and interviews with eyewitnesses, Quigley provided the following
account of Jean-Juste's arrest: Jean-Juste's church is on the top of a hill
and the rectory where he lives is at the bottom, along with a church hall
and kitchen where they feed hundreds of children every Wednesday and Sunday.

As church workers were preparing to feed the children, police officers and
masked men carrying automatic weapons entered the hall and told the children
to leave. As more officers arrived, they surrounded all of the church
buildings.

''They started shooting into the air, telling people to turn over the
priest,'' Quigley said. 'Father was inside the rectory at this point, and he
said, 'I'm the priest.' And so they grabbed him and said he was under
arrest. And he said, 'You don't have the right to arrest me. Show me an
arrest warrant!' They refused. He said, 'You shouldn't come into a church to
arrest a priest. I want to call the bishop.' And they laughed at him and
told him he wasn't calling anybody.''

The police officers then ransacked the rectory looking for guns and money.
The government claims Jean-Juste has been harboring members of Aristide's
political party, Lavalas Family, who have been responsible for widespread
violence in the capital.

''Of course, they found no guns, and they found no terrorists,'' Quigley
said.

While arresting Jean-Juste, police smashed some of the windows in the
rectory. When they were done, rather than walking the 57-year-old priest out
the door, Quigley said, ''They ended up dragging him out through the window,
over the broken glass and into a police car.''

According to Quigley, it was while being taken out the window that
Jean-Juste suffered his injuries, including minor cuts to his arms and legs.

''I could still see the scabs when I saw him today,'' Quigley said Monday.

''Nobody knows why they dragged him out through a window,'' he added. ''It
may have been to humiliate him.''

Quigley said during their visits, Jean-Juste has remained very upbeat.

''Like St. Paul and St. Peter, my body is in jail, but my spirit is free,''
Jean-Juste said, according to Quigley.

When Quigley asked Jean-Juste if he had a message he wanted him to deliver
to the world, the ever defiant Jean-Juste responded: ''Insist we return to
constitutional order in Haiti. Demand freedom for all political prisoners.
Respect the human rights of everyone. Pledge to respect the vote of the
people. Advocate for the return of President Aristide so he can finish his
electoral mandate through February 2006.''






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