25151: Haiti Progres (news) This Week in Haiti 23 : 10 05/18/2005 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haïti Progrès <editor@haiti-progres.com>

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                             HAITI PROGRES
                 "Le journal qui offre une alternative"

                         * THIS WEEK IN HAITI *

                            May 18 - 24, 2005
                            Vol. 23, No. 10

LETTER FROM YVON NEPTUNE

The health of constitutional prime minister Yvon Neptune continues to
deteriorate on day 28 of a hunger strike to demand that he be tried or
freed. He has been illegally imprisoned since June 27, 2004 without ever
going before a judge (see HaVti ProgrPs, Vol. Vol. 22, No. 16,
6/30/2004).

Congressman Kendrick Meek (D-FL) visited Neptune on May 16 in his prison
cell in the jail next to Police headquarters in the Pacot neighborhood
of the capital. Meek called de facto government claims over the weekend
that Neptune was in good health "totally inaccurate."

"I had to get on the floor [next to Neptune's bed] just to hear him
speak," Meek said.

Meanwhile, in New York on May 11, Neptune's daughter Maryvonne held a
press conference at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). "We don'
t know the condition of his organs," she said. "I'm calling for action,
for people to actively and openly put pressure on the people who are
detaining him."

South Africa's African National Congress (ANC) also sounded an alarm
over Neptune's "grave condition" in its weekly Internet newsletter. "As
an immediate step, the interim government must either formally charge or
release Yvon Neptune and other political prisoners," the newsletter
said. The ANC also said that "urgent steps need to be taken to end the
brutalization of Haiti's population and open the way for a meaningful
national dialogue towards the restoration of the country's
constitutional order."

Neptune's situation is perhaps best conveyed by himself, in a letter
which was translated into English by Serge Bellegarde, Guy Antoine, and
Marilyn Mason. Neptune wrote it just after he was dragged to St. Marc on
April 22 for a no-show judge.

>From the time I left the Prime Minister's residence on March 12, 2004,
up until June 27, 2004, the source of my insecurity had been the [de
facto] Government itself. When the Government had me arrested on June
27, up until today, not only did this source of my insecurity increase
and became more direct, but even worse, the Government deprived me of my
freedom of movement, together with my freedom to speak freely, with all
the length and breadth and depth that the Constitution allows for this
right to be exercised.

The hunger strike I began on February 20 was aimed at forcing the
Government to set me free and to stop being the cause of my insecurity.

Because of a promise the Government had made that it was going to
liberate me, I accepted to put an end to my hunger strike and to go to
the Argentine Hospital under the jurisdiction of the MINUSTAH/United
Nations.

Even while in that hospital, however, my insecurity continued because of
the Government's continuing refusal to set me free.

That is why, while I was in the Hospital managed by the
Argentinians/MINUSTAH, I continued to resist so that the United Nations
would not send me to the trap of the supposed Villa in Pacot, but
rather, that it would require instead that the Government free me and
stop threatening my life. It was in the context of the dilatory tactics
of this wicked Government that I was obliged to resume my hunger strike
with even more force and why I am continuing it in the prison in Pacot,
still with the aim of regaining my freedom and my security.

My friends, listen. On April 20, here is the information I had passed
on: this plot aims at keeping me in prison by all means for as long as
possible; that is one objective. The second objective is to take me, no
matter what the conditions, to Saint-Marc to continue the political
humiliation. Friends, listen: while I was already into the fifth day of
my complete hunger strike, on Thursday afternoon, April 21, having given
me guarantees that nothing would happen to me, the United Nations Forces
took me, against my will, to a supposed Prison Villa in Pacot, close to
the General Administration and Inspection Headquarters of the Police,
despite the fact that I had explained to the UN Representative that this
was a trap that the de facto Government had set up to implement the
death plan it had for me. Above all, I told them that I would maintain
my hunger strike in the supposed Prison Villa as long as I was not set
free.

My friends, on Friday April 22, early in the morning, a team of 7 to 10
executioners I recognized from the prison system burst in on me to take
me to Saint-Marc. I felt my life was in danger in the presence of these
executioners; I told them I had not eaten, nor drunk anything in five
days, and I asked them to leave me in peace because I was weak. When
they picked me up with force, put me outside, and tried to handcuff me,
I resisted for my life and I bit one of the many arms trying to force
handcuffs on my wrists.

They drove me to Saint-Marc. I threw up all along the way. When we
arrived in Saint-Marc, nothing was done. Supposedly, Mrs. Cluny Pierre
Jules, the supposed Investigating Judge, declared that she was not
coming because she had not been previously notified.

When the UN Representative received news of what the conditions were in
Saint-Marc and of what kind of state I was in, he sent a helicopter to
pick me up and take me back to Port-au-Prince, where I received some
care in a UN ambulance which escorted me back to the supposed Prison
Villa in Pacot.

I am continuing my hunger strike, so that I can regain my freedom and my
security and so that the de facto Government will stop threatening my
life, while it continues to trample on my dignity.

Yvon Neptune
Former Prime Minister
Member of Fanmi Lavalas
Political Prisoner
At the Prison in Pacot, Port-au-Prince



OPEN LETTER TO HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH
by Kevin Pina

TO: Human Rights Watch (HRW)

RE: Letter to the U.N. Security Council on the Renewal of the Mandate of
the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)

DATE: May 17, 2005

Dear Human Rights Watch,

In your recent letter to the U.N. Security Council dated May 16, 2005
you stated, "During a recent mission to Haiti, Human Rights Watch
documented daily acts of violence in Port-au-Prince. We found that much
of the violence is perpetrated by armed gangs claiming affiliation with
former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Despite security operations
recently carried out jointly by MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police
(HNP), neighborhoods such as Cite Soleil remain paralyzed by violence."

You then follow this statement several paragraphs down with: "Given
Haiti's upcoming elections, we encourage you to ensure that MINUSTAH has
all necessary resources for establishing a stable and secure environment
for the electoral process. In addition to the mission's efforts to
support the process of national dialogue and to address logistical and
administrative problems, it should also take concrete steps to ensure
the safety of all participants in the electoral campaign. Specifically,
we encourage you to enhance MINUSTAH's capacity to provide security for
protests and public marches. MINUSTAH should also undertake to ensure
that the police do not use lethal force unnecessarily against
demonstrators, as occurred during the February and March 2005
demonstrations in Cite Soleil. To this end, we encourage you to consider
deploying additional Formed Police Units to assist and train the HNP in
crowd-control techniques compatible with international human rights
standards."

These two statements are clearly contradictory. The first blames
violence on "armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide" and follows with praise for the MINUSTAH's and
HNP's "security operations."

Later you make a weak criticism of the HNP for massacres they have
committed during peaceful demonstrations but avoid calling for a public
investigation to make the police accountable for these very same
killings. With one-hand you praise the Haitian police for raids into the
capital's poor neighborhoods with the U.N. (where there is also evidence
of human rights violations) and with the other hand you acknowledge
abuses by the police during peaceful demonstrations without holding them
accountable.

As an independent journalist living in Haiti, who puts his camera
between the Haitian police and demonstrators to cover this story, I am
deeply disappointed with your letter because it falls short of demanding
the Haitian police be investigated for documented cases of human rights
abuses and extra-judicial killings. Not only does this place journalists
like myself in greater danger, but I wonder how I will explain your
position to the families of the victims slaughtered by the Haitian
police who are merely asking for justice and accountability? Do I tell
them that Human Rights Watch agrees with the Haitian police that their
loved ones were expendable because they were suspected of being members
of "armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide?" (It is well-documented that they were shot in cold-blood
during a peaceful demonstration.) Do I tell them HRW agrees with the
Haitian police tactic (captured on video) of planting guns on the
corpses of unarmed demonstrators after they kill them? If you don't
believe me then trust you own eyes and visit:
www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/5_8_5/5_8_5.html.

Look at the 35 images of HNP handiwork and know that this is what you
are dismissing with your half-hearted and biased human rights work in
Haiti.

For my part, I will publicly encourage my readers and listeners to
discontinue responding to your fund-raising appeals. I will tell them
that whenever they read HRW statements they should be suspicious and
return any HRW fund-raising appeals marked: "What about your position on
Haiti? Hold the Haitian police accountable!" I will continue to do this
until HRW stops dismissing victims of the Haitian police as "collateral
damage" and begins to demand a public investigation into the HNP's human
rights abuses.

Sincerely,

Kevin Pina
Editor, Haiti Information Project
Associate Editor, Black Commentator
Haiti Special Correspondent, Flashpoints Radio on Pacifica
Frequent guest commentator on Haiti for several local, national and
international radio programs.

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