25033: Brianhaiti: (news) Fwd: Clearing the Fences in Haiti: Yvon Neptune Nears Death (Counterpunch) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Brianhaiti@aol.com

http://www.counterpunch.org

May 5, 2005

Yvon Neptune Nears Death



Clearing the Fences in Haiti

By BRIAN CONCANNON, Jr.
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 de
mocracy, 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.

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