25067: Hermantin(News)Jailed, fasting ex-leader so weak he can't walk (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, May. 11, 2005


HAITI

Jailed, fasting ex-leader so weak he can't walk

Haiti's imprisoned ex-prime minister Yves Neptune has grown weak during a
hunger strike protesting his legal limbo of nearly a year.
BY JANE REGAN AND JOE MOZINGO
jmozingo@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - On his 23rd day of a jailhouse hunger strike, former Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune is reported to have grown so weak that he cannot walk
and slips in and out of consciousness, raising fears that he will die before
he escapes the legal limbo of the past 11 months.

Neptune, who served under ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was
arrested June 27 on allegations that he directed a massacre of political
opponents in the port town of St. Marc in the panicky final weeks of
Aristide's rule.

Aristide supporters deny a massacre occurred and say the killings -- at
least two dozen, according to human rights observers -- resulted from
fighting between police and armed groups intent on toppling the government.

They have helped Neptune turn his prolonged imprisonment into a cause
célbre, using it to challenge the legitimacy of the new interim government
and call for Aristide's return. The hunger strike has become a high-stakes
test of wills between Neptune, who is risking his life, and the Haitian
government, which could lose critical support from the United States and the
United Nations if he dies.

''The de facto regime wants to kill him,'' said Mario Dupuy, a spokesman for
Aristide's Lavalas Family party. ``There is no justice in Haiti right now.
They must free Mr. Neptune and all political prisoners.''

Human rights observers have largely agreed with Neptune's advocates. Even
officials from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti -- there to support
the interim government -- have called on authorities to give Neptune a fair
trial or release him.

DEMANDS TO STAY

It is unclear exactly how ill Neptune may be. On May 2, doctors announced
that he had two days to live, and U.N. officials arranged to transport him
to a hospital in the Dominican Republic.

But Neptune, demanding his unconditional release, refused to leave. He
remains incarcerated in a private house, used as a prison annex for
high-profile inmates, in the upscale neighborhood of Pacot.

Thierry Fagart, a top U.N. human rights official, told The Herald on Tuesday
that when he visited Neptune on Monday night, the prisoner was gaunt and
could no longer get to his feet.

''His health situation is not good at all,'' Fagart said. ``He was really,
really tired. He was too weak to talk.''

Supporters of Neptune say doctors have warned that his organs are
deteriorating and his kidneys could fail any day.

''As of [Sunday] night, he was still lucid, still conscious most of the
time,'' said Brian Concannon, an American attorney with close contact to
Neptune's family. ``He was drinking water. Not able to walk, though.''

Aristide, who is living in exile in South Africa, called on the world to
''mobilize'' to save Neptune, according to a transcript of an interview
released Tuesday.

''How long will he be able to survive, we don't know,'' Aristide told the
leftist Democracy Now!, a self-proclaimed independent news organization.
``That's why we grasp this opportunity to ask everyone who can do something
to not hesitate because it is a matter of life and death. We need to save
his life.''

Many Lavalas supporters criticized Neptune last year when he stepped down
and allowed for the transition to interim Prime Minister Gerard LaTortue.
When he turned himself over to authorities in June, there was little outcry
over his imprisonment.

But when Neptune and former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, also in
jail on related charges, staged a 19-day hunger strike in March, Lavalas
partisans rallied for their release. Privert has also not gone to trial, as
are hundreds of Haitians without the name recognition.

CONVICTIONS LACKING

An Organization of American States human rights delegation last month found
that of 1,054 inmates in the National Penitentiary, only nine were convicted
of a crime.

The situation is not new.

''This is part of the series of chronic problems the Haitian justice system
has,'' said Marie Yolene Gilles, National Network for the Defense of Human
Rights, a Haitian nonprofit group.

``No government has ever corrected it. Under Aristide, there were people who
spent up to three years in prison before seeing a judge.''

There are two stages of being charged with a crime in Haiti, one at the time
of arrest, another by a judge when the case is ready for trial. Neptune has
been charged only after his arrest. He has requested different judges and
asked for changes in venues.

Gilles said Neptune has been called before a judge three times, but has
refused to go.

When he was taken to St. Marc to go to court on April 22 -- five days into
his second hunger strike -- he allegedly bit a prison guard.

''He is the one who caused the delay,'' Justice Minister Bernard Gousse told
the Herald earlier this year.