[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
25787: Carroll: (call for action) Father Jean Juste
From: "maria.carroll" <maria.carroll@insightbb.com>
My name is Maria Carroll and I am a first time poster. This was posted on the
web. News/Call for action regarding Father Gerry Jean Juste's arrest and
treatment.
Thanks for providing this great source of information about Haiti.
Maria
Dear Friends:
This is Bill Quigley. I was with Fr. Gerard
Jean-Juste all day yesterday from church to jail.
Though it seems unbelievable even to me, this is is
what happened and some action ideas about what to do
about it. Pardon if it is not very well-written, but
the computers are not working well and this is the
best I can do in short time with little sleep. Please
circulate this to anyone you want. Please feel free
to reprint and send it anywhere.
Story:
Haitian Priest Assaulted by Mob at Funeral and
Arrested for Murder.
By Bill Quigley, in Port au Prince. Bill is a law
professor at Loyola University New Orleans and is
co-counsel with Mario Joseph and the Institute for
Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Mario Joseph can be
reached at 509.554.4284. Bill can be reached in Haiti
at 509.401.4822 and in US at 504.861.2709.
On Thursday July 21, 2005, Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste
went to St. Pierre's Catholic Church to be one of the
priests participating in the funeral of Haitian
journalist Jacques Roche. Fr. Jean-Juste is a cousin
of the Roche family and members of the Roche family
protected him from a mob earlier in his life. He went
to express spiritual comfort and reconciliation to the
family.
The tragic kidnaping and death of Jacques Roche
has been taken up as a cause by those opposed to the
Lavalas party. Jacques Roche was identified as a
supporter of the people calling themselves the group
of 184, who overthrew by force the democratically
elected goverment of President Aristide, the leader of
the Lavalas party, in February 2004.
Oppononents of Aristide say that because the body
of Jacques Roche was found in a poor neighborhood that
he was executed by the Lavalas party who is very
strong in the poorest neighborhoods. For those of us
in the US, this is much like blaming John Kerry for
inner city deaths because most of the people in the
inner city vote democratic.
Fr. Jean-Juste went to the funeral expressly to
pay his respects to the family and express his open
remorse and opposition to any killing of anyone, no
matter their political affiliation.
Jacques Roche's coffin was in the chapel next to
the sacristy and main area of the chuch. At 10
o'clock the bishop and about seven priests robed in
white with purple stoles or sashes paraded out of the
sacristy of the church to the chapel next to the main
area of the church to say blessings over the coffin of
Jacques Roche.
When Fr. Jean-Juste walked out, people started
yelling at him in the chapel. They called him
"assasin" and "criminal" and yelled out to "arrest and
kill the rat."
Fr. Jean-Juste has been publicly accused in the
last several days of "a plot against the security of
the state," smuggling money and guns into the
country, and of being behind all the kidnappings.
All clearly false charges but widely reported by
unfriendly press.
People knew Fr. Jean-Juste was coming to the
funeral because that was printed on the front page of
a conservative paper the day before.
As the well-dressed people continued yelling at
Fr. Jean-Juste, the prayer service nearly turned into
a riot. The other priests turned to leave and a
well-dressed crowd of screaming people surrounded him.
I went out to be by his side. Some plainclothes
security people and a few priests surrounded us and
helped push us through the increasingly hostile crowd
back into the church sacristy.
The other priests then persuaded Fr. Jean-Juste
not to continue in the funeral service. So we stood
aside as the priests and the funeral crowd filed past
us into the main church.
Well-dressed men and women continued to scream
and threaten Fr. Gerry as they moved by us into the
church. Then a crowd of 15 or 20 or more young men,
not dressed at all for the funeral came into the
sacristy and the mood turned uglier and more menacing.
At that point, the security forces melted away.
The young men continued the screaming started by
the well-dressed people and then started pushing and
hitting Pere Jean-Juste. At that point a young woman
came out of the funeral crowd and embraced Fr.
Jean-Juste shielding him with her body from the blows
and the increasingly loud and angry young men. She
started praying loudly and saying "mon pere, mon
pere."
A man in a suit, who identified himself as head of
security for the funeral, rushed back in from the
church area - only a few feet away and in plain view
-and told Fr. Gerry these people were going to kill
him there in the sacristy unless he fled. Fr.
Jean-Juste knelt to pray and the woman and I knelt
with him in the middle of the growing crowd.
At that point people started slapping Fr.
Jean-Juste on the head and face and spitting on him
and the other two of us. Something then hit Fr.
Jean-Juste in the head. Someone punched him in the
eye. We stood up and a few UN CIVPOL officers showed
up to help us leave the sacristy of the church. As we
tried to get to the stairs people continued pushing
and screaming and shouting threats. They continued to
call out "assasin," "criminal," and "kill the rat."The
crowd now overwhelmed the police. More people spit on
us and hit Fr. Gerry, even in the face, while others
were grabbing his church vestments trying to drag him
off the church steps.
The CIVPOL were trying to hold back the crowd but
were still well outnumbered and were not able to halt
the mob. We moved up the steps into a narrow dark
corridor while the crowd pushed and shoved and spit
and hit. We then retreated into a smaller corridor
and finally to a dead end that contained two small
concrete toilet stalls.
The three of us were pushed into the stalls as the
crowd banged on the walls and doors of the stalls and
continued screaming. The woman held the door closed
and prayed loudly as the people outside roared and the
CIVPOL called for reinforcements.
After a few minutes, reinforcements arrived and
the hallway was finally cleared of all but us and the
authorities.
A man in a suit identifying himself as secretary
for security for Haiti told us that he was going to
have to arrest Fr. Jean-Juste because public clamor
had identified him as the assasin of journalist
Jacques Roche. The police would bring him to the
police station for his own safety. Fr. Jean-Juste
told the man that he was in Florida when the
journalist was killed and he wanted to return to St.
Claire's, his parish. The man left escorting out the
woman who helped us.
In a few minutes, CIVPOL police, including troops
from Jordan, surrounded Fr. Jean-Juste and I and ran
us out of the church to a police truck. The truck
with police with machine guns sped away from the
church and took us not to Fr. Gerry's parish but to
the police station in Petitionville.
For the next seven or eight hours we were kept in a
room while the UN forces and the Haitian forces
negotiated about what to do. Fr. Gerry read his
prayer book while we waited. We were told informally
that the UN wanted to escort Fr. Jean-Juste back to
his parish but the Haitian government was insisting
that he be arrested.
The attackers were allowed to go free and not
arrested, but they wanted to arrest the victim!
Fr. Gerry told me "This is all a part of the death
sentence called down upon me on the radio in Miami.
The searches at the airport, the visits to the police
stations, the mandate to appear before a criminal
judge yesterday, and now this. It is all part of the
effort to silence my voice for democracy."
At about 6pm, several Haitian officers came into
our room and ordered Fr. Gerry and I and Haitian
attorney Mario Joseph to come with them.
The officers held out a piece of paper that they
said was an official complaint against Fr. Gerry
accusing him of being the assasin of Jacques Roche.
The complaint was based on "public clamor" at the
funeral identifying him as the murderer. They refused
to let Fr. Jean-Juste or the lawyers see this paper.
It was their obligation, they said, to investigate
this public clamor identifying him as the murderer.
If Fr. Jean-Juste chose not to talk with them, they
would put him in jail immediately.
Fr. Jean-Juste agreed to the interrogation and it
went on for over three hours. He was growing
increasingly sore and tired from the beating he took,
but was not bleeding externally. When the lawyers
argued with the police, Fr. Gerry read his prayer
book.
The police already knew that Fr. Jean-Juste was in
Florida at the time of the kidnapping and death of the
journalist, because the police had already interviewed
him several times in the last few days in connection
with the other false allegations against him, but
asked him many questions anyway. How many cell phones
did he have? What is his exact relation to Jacques
Roche? Why did he go to the funeral? Can he prove he
was in Florida? Since he was on the news in Florida
can he provide a copy of the newstape showing he was
in Florida? When Aristide was president was he
provided with armed security? What happened to the
pistols that his secutity had? Could he find out and
have any pistols returned to the government? Why did
he go to the funeral? Did Lavalas promise Aristide to
execute someone from the group of 184 in retaliation
for them taking power? When was the last time he was
in the US? Are the Catholic sisters in Bel-Air with
you when you got to demonstrations there? and on and
on.
After over three hours, the interrogation
finished.
With great solemnity the police told Fr. Jean-Juste
that he was being charged with participating in the
death of Jacques Roche and not returning state
property. The said the law orders that he will be
brought before a judge within 48 hours for further
decision.
At exactly 10pm, Fr. Gerry handed me his keys and
church vestments and was locked into the jail cell at
Petionville with many, many others. He was holding a
pink plastic rosary, his prayer book and a roll of
toilet paper.
He flashed a tired smile and told me: "Now you
see what we are up against in Haiti. If they treat me
like this, think how they treat the poor people. Tell
everyone that with the help of God and everyone else I
will keep up the good fight. Everyone else should
continue to fight for democracy as well. The truth
will come out. I am innocent of all charges. I will
be free soon. Freedom for Haiti is coming. The
struggle continues."
As I left him, a very tired Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste
was being greeted by all the prisoners in the very
crowded jail cell as "mon pere!"
Action: Write or fax UN Special Representative
Juan Gabriel Valdés, urging him to release MINUSTAH's
prison report immediately, and to resist pressure from
the Haitian police to minimize the number of
casualties. A sample letter is below. Mr. Valdés
speaks English, French and Spanish. His fax number is
(dial 011 first from the US for an international line)
509 244 3512.
__________
Mr Juan Gabriel Valdés
Special Representative of the Secretary-General
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti
387, avenue John Brown
Port-au-Prince, Haïti
Contact Information:
U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, James B. Foley
United States Embassy
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephones: 011-509-223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354
Fax: 011-509-223-1641 or 9038
Email to Dana Banks, Human Rights Officer:
BanksD@state.gov
___________
Canadian Ambassador to Haiti, Claude Boucher
Embassy of Canada
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephone: 011-509- 249-9000
Fax: 011-509-249-9920
Email: prnce@international.gc.ca
________________________________________________
Ambassador of France in Haiti, M. Yves GAUDEUL
Embassy of France
51 place des Héros de l'Indépendance - BP 312
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephone: 011-509-222-0952
Fax : 011-509-223 5675
Haiti Authorities:
Fax. No. 011-509-245-0474
Me. Henri Dorléans
Ministre de la Justice et de la Sécurité Publique
Ministère de la Justice
19 Avenue Charles Sumner
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
----- End forwarded message -----