24483: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti's ex-PM, on hunger strike, taken to hospital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 11 (Reuters) - Haiti's jailed former
prime minister, Yvon Neptune, who started a hunger strike 19 days ago to
protest his detention, has been transferred to a U.N. hospital, a U.N.
spokesman said on Friday.
     Haiti's interim government made the decision to take Neptune to the
U.N. hospital in Port-au-Prince, the spokesman, Damian Onses-Cardona, said.
Neptune has been imprisoned for more than eight months without a trial.
     "This measure was taken because of the deterioration of Mr. Neptune's
health conditions," Onses-Cardona said.
     Neptune, 58, is stable and responding well to treatment, he said.
     Neptune, who served under deposed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
was arrested on June 27 on accusations of masterminding a series of
killings on Feb. 11, 2004, in a village near Saint Marc, about 60 miles (95
km) north of Port-au-Prince.
     The U.N. hospital's medical chief, Dr. Carlos Bedjan, said Neptune had
eaten fruit and cheese after he was admitted.
     Asked if Neptune had ended his hunger strike, Bedjan said, "He only
accepted to follow doctors' orders while being treated."
     In a letter two weeks ago to several foreign ambassadors in Haiti,
Neptune said he would continue the hunger strike until he was freed. He has
accused the government, installed after Aristide left Haiti on Feb. 29,
2004, of jailing him for political reasons.
     Onses-Cardona said two agents from the penitentiary's administration
and one U.N. police officer, all unarmed, were guarding Neptune inside the
medical center, which was secured by dozens of armed U.N. peacekeepers.
     Neptune and another inmate linked to Aristide briefly left prison last
month amid conflicting accounts of an armed attack on the jail.
     Aristide left Haiti after a bloody revolt by armed gangs and former
members of the disbanded army and under pressure from the United States and
France. He was granted asylum in South Africa.
     Critics have accused interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's
government of arbitrarily imprisoning hundreds of Aristide supporters.
Latortue has denied the charges.