26061: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Jailed Priest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By ALFRED de MONTESQUIOU

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 24 (AP) -- A jailed Roman Catholic priest says he is
waiting for the backing of deposed leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide before he
decides to run for president in the fall.
   The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, who has been in jail since July without
charges, has emerged as the most prominent member of Aristide's Lavalas
Family movement, which is still the most popular political faction in this
troubled nation.
   "If Aristide approves my candidacy, I may accept the party's
nomination," he told The Associated Press on Tuesday from behind a fence at
a visiting area in Haiti's National Penitentiary.
   Jean-Juste's insistence on Aristide's backing suggests the former
president, who was ousted in a bloody rebellion in 2004, retains a firm
hold on his Lavalas movement even from exile in South Africa.
   Jean-Juste has been detained in connection with the kidnapping and
slaying of prominent journalist Jacques Roche though authorities have
offered no proof. Amnesty International has called the allegations
"apparently trumped up charges" and labeled the priest a "prisoner of
conscience."
   The priest, who was only permitted to speak with a reporter for three
minutes, said he couldn't discuss specifics, but said that his life was in
danger in the prison.
   He said that he fell unconscious for 20 minutes because of the heat in
his cell and showed marks on his neck that he claimed were from a beating
by a mob before his July arrest.
   A senior member of the Lavalas Family movement said Wednesday it may
boycott the elections if Jean-Juste is not released along with other party
figures in time to participate.
   "The masses of Lavalas Family have asked for Jean-Juste to be our
candidate, so he is our likely presidential candidate," said Gerard Gilles,
a former senator and a party leader.
   Lavalas has been divided over whether to participate in the elections --
the first since the rebellion that ousted Aristide.
   "If we are pushed to boycott, these elections will be rubbish, they will
have no popular legitimacy," Gilles said in an interview.
   Jean-Juste is one of hundreds of prisoners in Haiti who have been held
without sentence -- or in some cases, charges.
   Others include Yvon Neptune, a former prime minister under Aristide who
has been jailed for more than a year without trial on charges of
involvement in political killings.
   The U.S.-backed interim government had faced mounting international
pressure to release Neptune, whose prolonged detention had fueled
allegations from Aristide loyalists of political persecution and focused
attention on the nation's crumbling judicial system.
   Separately, U.N. peacekeeping troops came under fire Wednesday as they
tried to protect an electoral registration bureau in the slum of Cite
Soleil, underscoring how volatile the capital remains. A peacekeeper from
Peru was wounded in the leg.
   "We put up a registration sign, and 10 minutes later we were under
fire," said U.N. electoral worker Ricardo Philion.