=?x-unknown?q?25068=3B__Blanchet=3A__IPS_on_Ha=EFti's_chaos?==?x-unknown?q?_=28fwd=29?=

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>


>
>
> EX-PREMIER'S HUNGER STRIKE SPOTLIGHTS A NATION'S CHAOS
> Inter Press Service/Global Information Network, May 10, 2005
> By Jim Lobe
>
> WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) -- A three-week hunger strike that now threatens the
> life of Haiti's jailed former prime minister, Yvon
> Neptune, is drawing international attention to the increasingly chaotic
> situation in the Americas' poorest nation.
>
> Neptune, who served as prime minister under ousted and exiled President
> Jean-Bertrand Aristide, began taking liquids at the
> request of his closest friends and family last weekend but remains in an
> extremely weak condition, according to reports from
> Port-au- Prince, where he has been held in a government house since March.
>
> Neptune has not seen a judge since shortly after his arrest last June on
> charges that he masterminded a mass killing in St. Marc
> in February 2004. The government, which has failed to disclose evidence
> against him, last week offered to drop all charges on
> condition that he fly to the Dominican Republic. But he turned it down,
> declaring that the move was an ill-disguised effort to
> exile him from Haiti permanently.
>
> Luigi Einaudi, the acting secretary general of the Organization of
American
> States (OAS) and former U.S. ambassador, warned last
> week that the case has "serious moral and political implications for the
> Haitian government and for the international community."
>
> Additionally, the head of the human rights division of the U.N.
peacekeeping
> mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), Thierry Fagart,
> denounced Neptune's continued detention as "illegal."
>
> The OAS' human rights arm, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
> (IACHR), issued a statement Friday stressing that it had
> yet to receive a response from the government of interim Prime Minister
> Gerard LaTortue to three IACHR communications in as many
> months regarding Neptune's legal status and the condition of his health.
>
> The commission also noted that Neptune's situation was not unique but part
> of a broader and longstanding problem in Haiti of the
> prolonged detention of individuals without charge or trial. In a visit
there
> last month, it said, it found that only nine out of
> 1,054 inmates in the national penitentiary had been convicted of any
crime.
>
> The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush, which relied heavily
on
> Neptune's cooperation in the transition between the
> Aristide's controversial ouster and the subsequent installation of
> LaTortue's government, has not spoken publicly about the
> situation. Privately, it has reportedly pressed the interim regime to
> release him but to no avail.
>
> "The situation can only be described as ridiculous," said Jocelyn McCalla,
> head of the non-governmental National Coalition for
> Haitian Rights (NCHR) in New York City. "The Haitians are defying their
only
> international supporters."
>
> With 7,500 soldiers and police, MINUSTAH is the only force in the country
> that is both well organised and armed. It has been
> increasingly aggressive in confronting armed gangs and ex-soldiers over
the
> past year but it lacks the mandate and the strength to
> enforce order across the whole country.
>
> In a recent briefing here, a U.S. Defence Department official displayed a
> map of Haiti depicting the relative presence and control
> of MINUSTAH and Haitian National Police (HNP) forces in different parts of
> the country.
>
> Except for large cities such as Port-au-Prince, Cap-Haitien, and Gonaives,
> virtually the entire country is under the control of
> unofficial forces, mainly warlords and armed gangs including former
soldiers
> of the armed forces officially abolished by Aristide
> in 1995.
>
> The situation makes it very unlikely that elections scheduled for November
> will be free and fair, according to numerous observers
> who said there was little prospect of strengthening MINUSTAH forces or the
> HNP. According to a recent report by the anti-Aristide
> Haiti Democracy Project (HDP), the national police "is too small, under-
> equipped, and uneven in competence, and so infiltrated by
> either ex- military or sympathisers" of Aristide to be considered
reliable.
>
> In its report, based on a visit to Haiti last February, the HDP called for
> recruiting and dispatching a force of as many as 1,000
> auxiliaries hired from Haitian-French, Haitian-Canadian, and
> Haitian-American police and security professionals to expand the
> police presence in the countryside before elections and until the HNP
> reaches 8,000 men. Its strength is currently estimated at
> 5,000, according to HDP director James Morrell.
>
> Morrell insisted that successful elections still could take place because
> the number of polling sites was being reduced to ensure
> government and MINUSTAH control of the voting and thus reduce the chances
> for intimidation by armed groups. "It's really a matter
> of political will," he said.
>
> But McCalla, at NCHR, said he remained pessimistic. Funding for the
> registration and election process was still 20 million dollars
> short of minimum requirements, he said, adding that popular scepticism
about
> the polling ran high.
>
> "The election will ratify the de facto situation," McCalla said. "Whoever
> holds power on the ground today will win."
>
> "The guys who will be elected are thugs," he added.
>
> Recent reports have stressed that the continuing instability has benefited
> drug traffickers who use Haiti as a transit point for
> northward shipments.
>
> "Of significant concern are the contacts between drug traffickers and the
> ex-military," said the HDP report, which added that
> corruption by traffickers of the police and the judiciary did not begin
> after Aristide's ouster.
>
> Meanwhile, Haiti's economy, which was supposed to have been boosted by
more
> than 1.3 billion dollars committed by donor nations
> and agencies at a World Bank meeting one year ago, remains stalled. Only
> about 20 percent of the funds are believed to have been
> released to date.
>
>
>
>