23863: Hermantin (News) Aristide backers in Little Haiti cheer freed priest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>


Aristide backers in Little Haiti cheer freed priest



By Alva James-Johnson
Staff Writer

December 8, 2004

The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, the popular activist who spent seven weeks in a
Haitian prison before his release last week, returned to Little Haiti on
Tuesday to an exuberant throng of supporters who lavished him with hugs,
kisses and chants of welcome.

The crowd of about 250 people greeted Jean-Juste at the headquarters of Veye
Yo, an organization he founded that is now a hub for supporters of ousted
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The crowd spilled onto Northeast 54th Street and mobbed Jean-Juste as he
approached the building. Inside, people waved posters of him and a woman
shouted, "Thank you, Jesus. Thank you God" as he entered the room.

"I am here today to say a special thank you to all of you," the Roman
Catholic priest said when the clatter finally simmered down. Among "other
political prisoners, I am the one set free."

Jean-Juste, a strong supporter of Aristide, is the former director of the
Haitian Refugee Center in Miami, once located in a building next to Veye Yo.
In the 1970s and 1980s, he was a prominent spokesman for Haitian immigrants
in Miami.

"I remember the day when he laid down in front of a truck full of refugees
and told them, `If you want to deport those people, you have to run the
truck over me,'" said Hans Mardy, 40, who along with a crowd of about 100
others followed Jean-Juste to Notre Dame d'Haiti Catholic Church, stopping
traffic along the way. "The community has to say thanks to him for all that
he did in the early 1980s when [immigration officials] wanted to deport
Haitians left and right."

Jean-Juste returned to Haiti in 1991 and became pastor of St. Claire's
Catholic Church in Port-au-Prince. He was arrested Oct. 13 while working at
his soup kitchen.

He said he had talked to Aristide just hours earlier and told him that the
people still loved him. He said he thinks the Haitian government intercepted
the conversation.

Jean-Juste said police officers arrived at the church in black hoods the day
of his arrest. A commander ordered them to break his legs, he said, but they
didn't comply because many of them had received food from his soup kitchen.

Authorities accused him of inciting violence in recent months among
Aristide's chimères, armed gangs that have been blamed for the deaths of
dozens of people. Jean-Juste denies the charges. More than 100 have been
killed in political violence since Sept. 30, when Aristide groups stepped up
protests demanding his return, according to The Associated Press.

"I was feeding hungry people when they came with guns and handcuffs and took
me away," he said at a news conference Tuesday. "I'm a priest. I want to go
to heaven. ... I don't kill people."

He said the "de facto government" of Haiti put him in prison with about 700
other political prisoners, and those who remain are living under horrendous
conditions.

Seven inmates were killed in a riot at the national penitentiary last week
while Secretary of State Colin Powell was visiting the country.

"We in Haiti and abroad, we want freedom for all the political prisoners,"
he said. "The jails are too crowded. This is totally inhumane."

Jean-Juste also called for the Bush Administration to abandon its current
policy in Haiti, which he thinks began with the "kidnapping" of Aristide and
the establishment of an "illegal" government. He called for Aristide's
return to Haiti from South Africa, where he lives in exile. He left the
country Feb. 29 amid rising violence.

As Jean-Juste spoke, some interim Haitian government officials were just a
few miles away at the Inter-Continental Hotel, attending a conference on
economic development in the Caribbean. They scoffed at Jean-Juste's claims
that the government is politically persecuting Aristide supporters.

"We believe in democracy, and people saying what they want to, but that
doesn't mean the things that they say are true," said Haitian Minister of
Finance Henri Bazin. "The people put in jail are people who have been
accused of committing violent crimes and were killing people."

Alva James-Johnson can be reached at ajjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or
954-356-4523.
Copyright © 2004, South Florida Sun-Sentinel