24167: Haiti Progres (news) This Week In Haiti 22 : 46 1/25/05 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

"This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES
newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French
and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100,
(fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at editor@haitiprogres.com.
Also visit our website at <www.haitiprogres.com>.

                       HAITI PROGRES
          "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                     * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                  January 25 - February 1, 2005
                         Vol. 22, No. 46



NEW POLICE AND OCCUPATION TACTICS:

EVACUATIONS AND EXECUTIONS

At 11:00 p.m. on Monday night, January 24, hundreds of heavily armed
Haitian police officers and foreign occupation troops assembled at
Delmas 33 in Port-au-Prince. An hour later, they swooped down on the
sprawling slum of Cité Soleil, kicking in doors and arresting untold
numbers of groggy residents. Their goal was apparently to capture or
kill Emmanuel Wilmer, known as Dred WilmP, the head of a pro-Lavalas
popular organization who has been leading resistance to the U.S.-backed
coup and occupation of Haiti. They didn't succeed.

Such as raids in Haiti's popular quarters are becoming nightly
occurrences in Port-au-Prince, where the Haitian National Police (PNH)
and soldiers of the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) seek to
stamp out the fires of rebellion spreading throughout the Haitian
capital. But their brutal tactics are only spreading more outrage and
resistance.

Last week, residents of the Village de Dieu (God's Village), near the
National Theatre, were driven from their tumble-down homes by the PNH
and MINUSTAH.


"The police asked us to leave the area," one fleeing man told the
Nouvelliste. "We don't know where to go, but we definitely have to leave
to save our skins." The man was accompanied by his wife and five young
children.

As chilling and brutal as the forced evacuations was the cold-blooded
execution of a radio journalist covering the operation. Abdias Jean, 25,
a correspondent for the Magic Super Force program on WKAT in Miami, was
shot dead Jan. 14 by PNH officers in Village de Dieu.


He had come to cover the story when he learned that two people had been
killed in the course of the police evacuation of Village de Dieu. "As a
journalist, Abdias naturally came to the scene to see the bodies,"
explained Frantz Cadet of the Collective of Haitian Journalists for a
Free Press. "Then he left to get something to eat. It should be noted
that Abdias also lived in Village de Dieu and was often pointed out by
certain individuals in the neighborhood as being close to the Lavalas."


One of these individuals led the police in a search for Abdias, who was
arrested. The police then "took him aside and executed him with several
bullets," Cadet said.

Raymonde Jean, Abdias' mother, contends that her son was killed
precisely because he witnessed police brutality and violence. According
to Guyler Delva of the Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH), the
police killing was no accident and they had chased the journalist into a
home.

Only a day earlier, a similar execution came to light. On Jan. 13,
Jean-Charles Déus Charles learned that his son had been murdered while
in police custody. MINUSTAH soldiers had arrested the young man, Jimmy
Charles, eight days earlier and taken him to the PNH's Anti-Gang Unit
jail (see HaVti ProgrPs, Vol. 22, No. 45, 01/19/2005). "The next day, I
visited him in his cell," Jimmy's father told HaVti ProgrPs. "His wife
even brought him food over the following days."


When Jean-Charles went to visit his son on Jan. 9, he was told that the
young man would go before a judge the next day. But the next day, court
officers told Jean-Charles that the case was "incomplete" and a hearing
was postponed for Jan. 12. On that date, his son was also absent.


"I went to Anti-Gang to find out what happened," Jean-Charles said. "It
was then that I was told he had been 'freed.' I looked everywhere in
vain. Finally on Thursday, Jan. 13, I found his body in the morgue at
the General Hospital."


Despite such terror and repression, popular mobilization continues in
Haiti's poor neighborhoods. On Jan. 20, hundreds of demonstrators took
to the streets in Belair to demand an end to the crackdown. and a return
to constitutional order. In Cité Soleil, on Jan. 25, the morning after
the joint PNH/MINUSTAH raid the night before, hundreds took to the
streets to denounce the de facto government, police repression, and
foreign occupation.

FEBRUARY 7 ANNIVERSARY:

CONFERENCES PLANNED TO ORGANIZE RESISTANCE

On February 7, 1986, Haitian "President-for-Life" Jean-Claude "Baby Doc"
Duvalier fled Haiti on a U.S. military jet, marking the end of the
29-year dictatorship established by his father, François or "Papa Doc."


This year, different groups from Haiti's pro-democracy movement will
come together to hold two important gatherings in an effort to organize
resistance to the February 29, 2004 coup, which has restored Duvalierist
repression, corruption and servility in Haiti.


>From February 4-6, a number of groups are organizing a conference
entitled the "Bwa Kayiman Congress" at Trinity University in Washington,
DC. Bwa Kayiman was the spot just outside Cap HaVtien where the vodou
ceremony that launched the Haitian revolution in 1791 was held.


According to the call put out by the Congress organizers, their purpose
is to "gather the different parts of the fighting force" and "the true
friends of the Haitian people" struggling inside and outside of Haiti
"to win back its national dignity and the return of democracy in Haiti."
The Congress will seek to "define strategies of resistance, which can
allow us to reinforce in Haiti and in the diaspora the mobilization for
the return of democracy in Haiti and the recovery of national
sovereignty." In short, the conference will work to "reconstruct the
vast movement of solidarity with the struggle of the Haitian people."


The initiating organizations for the Congress are the Fondasyon Trant
Septanm, Fondasyon Mapou (FondMapou), Haiti Action Committee, Haitian
Lawyers Leadership Network and the Haitian Initiative for Democracy.


The Congress is seen as a follow-up to a similar meeting held on January
3, 2004 at the Aristide Foundation for Democracy in Port-au-Prince,
where over 30 solidarity groups, media, and individuals gathered to
discuss strategies to thwart the looming coup d'état.


On February 7, Bwa Kayiman Congress organizers will hold a press
conference with Congressional Representatives Maxine Waters (D-CA),
Barbara Lee (D-CA) and John Conyers (D-MI) as well as former TransAfrica
leader Randall Robinson and actor Danny Glover.


Meanwhile in Boston, the New England Human Rights Organization for Haiti
(NEHROH) is organizing an evening of solidarity with the people of Haiti
at the Boston School Bus Drivers' Union Hall in Roslindale, MA. Speakers
will include Haitian activist and singer Farah Juste, Ronald St. Jean of
the Committee for the Protection of the Rights of the Haitian People
(CDPH), Kim Ives of the Haiti Support Network (HSN), and Pat Chin of the
International Action Center (IAC). Judge Senat Fleury, who was recently
forced to resign by Haiti's de facto Justice Minister, and School Bus
union president Steve Gillis, who traveled to Haiti as part of a human
rights delegation last September, will also speak.


The event is being held to draw attention to and help build solidarity
with the Haitian people's struggle and to demand an end to the foreign
military occupation, the immediate return of the democratically elected
President, and the immediate release of all political prisoners.


Last September, the NEHROH along with the New York-based Haiti
Commission of Inquiry conducted joint delegations to Haiti to inspect
Haiti's prisons and speak with victims of political repression. The
delegates interviewed dozens of political prisoners including
constitutional Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, constitutional Interior
Minister Jocelerme Privert, and singer/activist Annette "So Anne"
Auguste.

The Bwa Kayiman Congress: will be held at the Trinity University Haiti
Program, 125 Michigan Avenue, NE, Washington, DC 20017. Contact KongrP
Bwa Kayiman 2005, c/o Fondasyon Mapou, P.O. Box 33724, Washington, DC
20033-3724, Tel:(301) 871-6082, Fax: (202) 332-1184, eMail:
kongrebwakayiman@yahoo.com, lovinskypa@yahoo.fr,
eugenia@fondasyonmapou.org.. Organizations wishing to participate are
being asked to ante up $100 and individuals $50 to cover organizing
costs.

The Boston Evening of Solidarity: will be held at the USWA Local 8751,
25 Colgate Road, Roslindale, MA. Contact Josué Renaud at 781-956-7417 or
nehroh@yahoo.com. A donation is requested.

JANUARY 25, 2005:

URGENT ACTION ALERT!

FROM THE HAITI ACTION COMMITTEE


Please call, e-mail and fax letters the officials listed below. Demand
Dominican officials not extradite Haitian national, Clifford H. Larose,
to Haiti's abusive death regime, especially in light of the recent
prison massacres in Haiti. Those deported to Haiti to be put in prison
right now are in grave danger of summary execution, especially if they
are supporters of the Constitutional government these defacto
authorities illegally replaced.


Tell the Dominican Republic: Don't extradite Clifford H. Larose and
other Haitian political exiles and refugees! Save a life. Prevent more
unmerited Haitian sufferings.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

On January 15, Dominican authorities arrested Clifford Larose, the
director of Haiti's prisons under the constitutional government
overthrown on February 29, 2004. Larose's only crime is having been an
official in President Aristide's democratically elected government. He
has been residing in the Dominican Republic but now faces extradition
based on the same vague, unsubstantiated charges and trumped up
accusations holding elected officials like former Prime Minister Yvon
Neptune and others in Haiti's jails today.

Because no prison massacres whatsoever were reported when Mr. Larose ran
the National Penitentiary , his return to Haiti is a certain death
sentence.

Please contact the following officials with the message NO TO THE

EXTRADITION OF CLIFFORD LAROSE and other political refugees.

Dr. Carlos Subero Isa, President, Supreme Court of Justice, telephone

1-809-533-3191 ext. 331 and 322; fax: 1-809-508-2724 o 1-809-532-2906;

e-mail: suprema.corte@verizon.net.do

Lic. Danilo Medina, Secretario De La Presidencia, telephone
1-809-695-8033

and 1-809-686-8204

Lic. Carlos Morales Troncoso, Secretario Relaciones Exteriores,
telephone

1-809-533-1923, 1-809-535-6280 and 1-809-535-6848

Ms. Sandrine Desamours, UNHCR Republica Dominicana, telephone

1-809-732-7121, e-mail domsa@unhcr.ch

Sample letter:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am writing with regards to the case of Mr. Clifford Larose. Mr. Larose
has

been legally living in the Dominican Republic. His only "crime" is
having

been a civil servant to a democratically elected government of Haiti.


If he is extradited to Haiti, where there is currently no functioning

judicial system, Mr. Larose faces certain death at the hands of
politically

motivated enemies.


I join with people of conscience throughout the Americas in demanding
Mr.

Larose and other political exiles not be forcibly removed to Haiti,
where

the rule of law has been subverted by a coup dâ?Tm©tat.

Respectfully yours,

Name: ______ City:______

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

                               -30-