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25008: Mason (article) Yvon Neptune Nears Death: Clearing the Fences in Haiti (fwd)
>From Marilyn Mason (MariLinc@aol.com)
Yvon Neptune Nears Death: Clearing the Fences in Haiti
By BRIAN CONCANNON, Jr.
CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org
May 5, 2005
Yvon Neptune's last meal may have been on April 17. Haiti's most recent
constitutional Prime Minister, now its most prominent political prisoner,
stopped eating eighteen days ago to protest ten months of illegal
imprisonment.
He
is weak, emaciated and near death -- his internal organs are failing. He has
vowed not to eat until the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) drops the charges
against him; charges that it has refused to pursue. The IGH, coming under
increasing pressure and looking for a compromise, offered to fly Neptune out
of the country for medical treatment and exile last weekend. But the
government would not drop the charges, so Neptune refused to leave.
The IGH has chosen a precarious place to take this stand. Neptune was
arrested pursuant to a valid warrant last June 27 (he turned himself in when
he
heard about it on the radio), but since then the government has not taken even
the first step in prosecuting the case against him. Although Haiti's
constitution requires that a judge confirm any detention within forty-eight
hours,
155 forty-eight hour periods have elapsed without Neptune seeing the judge on
his case.
There is scant evidence that the crime of which Mr. Neptune is accused, the
so-called "La Scierie Massacre" even happened. The accusations arose out of
violence in the provincial city of St. Marc in February, 2004, during a
rebellion against Mr. Neptune's government. On February 7, an armed
anti-government group called RAMICOS took over the St. Marc police station.
Two
days
later, police reinforcements reclaimed the station, and that afternoon the
Prime
Minister flew to the city to give a press conference and try to reassure the
population. Two days after that, on February 11, RAMICOS clashed again with
police and with members of Bale Wouze, a pro-government group, in the St. Marc
neighborhood of La Scierie. By almost all accounts, a few people on both
sides were killed. By many accounts the majority of deaths were on the RAMICOS
side. No one has presented evidence that Mr. Neptune was involved with the
clash in any way.
Two weeks later, Neptune's boss, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had been
kidnapped to the Central African Republic on a U.S. government jet, and
American Marines controlled Haiti. Mr. Neptune stayed in office for a few days
and cooperated with the transition to the unelected government, hoping to
avoid further bloodshed. In the meantime, a non-governmental organization
called
NCHR-Haiti, an IGH ally and ferocious critic of Neptune's government,
announced that there had been a massacre in La Scierie in which 50 people had
been
killed.
Journalists who were in St. Marc on February 11 and 12 reported no sign of
such a massacre. Louis Joinet, the UN Human Rights Commission's Independent
Expert on Haiti, concluded there was not a massacre, but a fight between two
groups. But NCHR-Haiti insisted that the case be prosecuted. The IGH, which
had
an agreement with NCHR-Haiti to prosecute anyone the organization denounced,
obliged by arresting Mr. Neptune along with the former Minister of the
Interior, a former member of Parliament and several others.
NCHR-Haiti received a $100,000 grant from the Canadian government (one of
the IGH's three main supporters, along with the U.S. and France) to pursue
the
La Scierie case. The organization hired a lawyer and former opposition
Senator to represent the victims, and kept up the pressure in the press, even
denouncing the government for allowing Neptune to receive medical treatment at
a
UN hospital. This persecution of Neptune went so far that NCHR-Haiti's parent
organization in the U.S. publicly disowned it and requested that it change
its name.
In the meantime, Neptune had an adventurous ten months in prison. He
survived at least two reported assassination attempts, a December massacre by
guards and police in a nearby cellblock, a February prison break in which he
was
removed from the prison at gunpoint (he turned himself in, again, as soon as
he could), and his first hunger strike, which he ended in March after three
weeks when he believed he had been promised freedom. He was not brought to
court.
The Interim Government keeps Neptune in jail for a case it declines to
pursue and cannot prove despite an impressive mobilization of world opinion.
UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN Security Council, the CARICOM countries,
human rights groups like Amnesty International, religious leaders and
ordinary citizens throughout the world have called on the IGH to let Neptune
go
to
trial or let him go free. Even U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Roger
Noriega, one of the regime's most steadfast foreign supporters, announced as
far
back as July that the IGH needed to prove its case or drop it.
If the IGH is taking a stand on precarious ground, so is Mr. Neptune. His
enormous and dangerous sacrifice has not gained much media attention for him
or
his cause. If he accepted the offer of exile, he could fight indefinitely
from abroad, if he dies he will complete his enemies' efforts to silence him.
Clearing his name is unnecessary -- it is obvious that there never was a case
against him -- but starving to death would not do it.
But Neptune's hunger strike is not really about clearing his name, it is
about clearing everyone off the fences. The Haitian government straddles one
fence by locking up its enemies while avoiding the legal consequences of that
policy. Hundreds of political prisoners sit in Haiti's jails, many with a
judge's release order sitting in their files. Next to most of them, Yvon
Neptune
is fortunate -- their detention is just as illegal, probably even more
dangerous, and with their lower profiles, they could hunger strike to the
bitter
end without anyone outside of Haiti caring. Even those prisoners are
fortunate,
next to the hundreds, if not thousands of others that the Haitian police
have executed on the spot in the last year, for demonstrating peacefully,
organizing for democracy, or for being young and male in a poor neighborhood.
Neptune's hunger strike is forcing the government to choose, to choose between
complying with the law and setting him free or publicly, illegally and
terminally depriving him of his rights.
The IGH's international patrons, especially the U.S., France, Canada,
straddle the fence by talking about human rights for Neptune and other
Haitians,
while avoiding the consequences of their support for the brutal IGH. Those
countries, along with the UN, are the government's principal butresses -- they
arm and protect the police, fund the government payroll and defend the IGH in
the international community. If any of those countries conditioned its
continued help on Mr. Neptune's release (or threatened to bundle the interim
President to the Central African Republic), Neptune would be free instantly.
Neptune's strike is showing that these countries cannot simultaneously support
their avowed human rights principles and a dictatorial regime, and it is
forcing them choose.
The citizens of the U.S., Canada and France are also straddling a fence --
we believe in justice and democracy, and in freedom for political prisoners,
but we avoid the fact that we are part of the problem. Our governments are
supporting the persecution of Yvon Neptune and so many others in our name with
our tax dollars, and we are, for the most part, doing very little about it.
The hunger strike is forcing us to choose between actively working for
Neptune's liberation or passively paying for his imprisonment.
There are signs of movement along the fence-line. Last weekend's offer of
exile shows that the IGH certainly fears the consequences of Neptune's death.
On Wednesday, the previously silent Human Rights Division of the UN Mission
in Haiti declared that "since the beginning of the procedure until today, the
fundamental rights, according to national and international standards, have
not been respected in the case of Mr. Neptune." The same day the Organization
of American States, which had previously refrained from criticizing the IGH,
noted the case's "serious moral and political implications for the Haitian
government and for the international community."
Neptune has been getting help with his fence-clearing work. Over the last
week, a flurry of petitions and action alerts circulated over the internet,
and
by hand in Haiti, North America and France have spurred hundreds of people
to tug their governments towards the side of justice for Yvon Neptune. But
hundreds have not been enough -- thousands may be needed, and time for Yvon
Neptune is running out.
Brian Concannon Jr., Esq. directs the Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti (IJDH), which has filed a Petition on behalf of Yvon Neptune before
the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. More information about
Neptune's
case, including resources for action are on _www.ijdh.org_
(http://www.ijdh.org) .
*****************
Marilyn Mason
The Creole Clearinghouse (TCC)
P.O. Box 181015
Boston, MA 02118
Tel.: 617-247-8885
Email: MariLinc@aol.com
Web: http://hometown.aol.com/CreoleCH/Index6.html
Creole LInks Page:
http://hometown.aol.com/MIT2Haiti/Index4.html
Marilyn's Publications Page:
_http://hometown.aol.com/MariLinc/Index3.html_
(http://hometown.aol.com/MariLinc/Index3.html)
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