Found at: http://www.pww.org/article/articleprint/7423/
More calls to free former Haitian prime minister
Author: Tim Pelzer
People's Weekly World Newspaper, 07/21/05 10:28
Despite mounting pressure for his release, deposed Haitian Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune remains in custody and is continuing a prolonged
hunger strike in protest against his yearlong detention without trial.
After going before a judge on May 25, he still has not been charged
with committing any crime.
Neptune, 58, was jailed by the interim government of Gerard Latortue a
few months after the U.S.-backed ouster of democratically elected
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. He has languished
in prison ever since. His current hunger strike, his second while in
custody, began on April 17. Eyewitnesses say he is emaciated and
physically weak.
Ronald St. Jean of the Haiti-based group Defense of Political
Prisoners' Rights said June 21 that Judge Clune Pierre Jules had
dismissed all charges against Neptune and ordered his release from
jail. This news was corroborated by Brian Concannon Jr. of the
Oregon-based Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, who said he
received a "reliable report" stating that the U.S. State Department
thinks the judge ordered Neptune's release.
However, Marguerite Laurence of the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network
said, "There are reports that the Latortue government is interfering
with this judicial order and delaying further by demanding that Jules
reconsider his decision."
The World repeatedly called the Ministry of Justice but no one was
available to comment on Neptune's situation. An Interior Ministry
official said he had no knowledge of Neptune's status.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Neptune is currently being held in
a villa guarded by and paid for by UN military forces, where he
remains bedridden.
The U.S.-installed government arrested Neptune on June 27, 2004, after
the National Coalition of Haitian Rights (NCHR) — since renamed the
"National Network of Human Rights Defenders" — and another group
alleged that Neptune ordered the massacre of government opponents in
the town of La Scierie on Feb. 11 of that year.
Neptune emphatically denied the allegation, and Louis Joinet, a UN
human rights investigator, has indirectly backed Neptune's stance.
After visiting La Scierie this April, Joinet rejected the allegation
that a massacre took place in that town on the date in question and
instead found that a spontaneous conflict between pro- and
anti-Aristide groups had erupted, resulting in casualties on both
sides.
The NCHR is by no means an impartial body, critics say. According to
Canada-based journalist Anthony Fenton, the NCHR participated in the
U.S.-led destabilization campaign against the elected Lavalas
government of President Aristide and has turned a blind eye to current
violations of human rights under the Latortue regime.
Fenton said, "Nothing speaks clearer toward the true role of NCHR in
carrying out partisan human rights investigations than their explicit
refusal to carry out investigations of summary executions and
massacres that are known to be have been perpetrated by U.S. Marines
and Haitian National Police in poor neighborhoods since February
2004."
A wide range of voices, from the Caribbean Community and Common Market
(Caricom) countries to Amnesty International, have demanded that
Neptune be immediately brought to trial or released.
During a June 24 visit to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, a special envoy
of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said, "It is very difficult to
understand how someone can be held in prison for a year without clear
accusations against him. The way we understand the legal system and
the procedures, we see no reason why Yvon Neptune should not be freed,
even when the investigation is under way."
tpelzer@shaw.ca