27059:: Hermantin(News)Languishing and sick in a Haitian jail (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Posted on Mon, Jan. 02, 2006


THE REV. GERARD JEAN-JUSTE
Languishing and sick in a Haitian jail

BY PAUL FARMER


''Lord, when was it we saw you sick and in prison?'' -- A question from the 
Gospel according to Matthew and surely a pertinent question for an American 
doctor working in his own country, Haiti, Siberia or Rwanda.

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- From time to time I see patients who are both sick and 
imprisoned. Those in Haiti are among the most unfortunate -- a U.S. court this 
year said that Haiti's prisons were ''reminiscent of a slave ship.'' A 
commission from the Organization of American States recently visited Haiti's 
National Penitentiary and reported that, of its 1,054 inmates, only nine had 
been convicted of any crime. And prisoners in Haiti receive almost nothing in 
the way of effective medical care.

Haiti's best known prisoner is a Catholic priest, Father Gerard ''Gerry'' 
Jean-Juste. Born and raised in Haiti, he was the first Haitian ordained a 
priest in the United States. Inspired by liberation theology, Father Gerry has 
worked with the homeless, uprooted and poor. He directed Miami's Haitian 
Refugee Center from 1979 to 1989, which championed the rights of Haitian 
immigrants, most of them newly arrived ''boat people'' fleeing persecution and 
misery in Haiti.

No evidence

But Father Gerry traded the comforts of Florida for the slums of his native 
country. Charismatic and warm, he turned his attention to feeding the hungry, 
clothing the naked and putting children in school. This work became more 
difficult following the February 2004 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide. He was threatened, harassed and beaten. In October 2004, he was 
arrested illegally while feeding children their only meal of the day.

When the government could present no evidence of wrongdoing, a judge released 
Father Gerry after seven weeks in jail. The government then forced the judge 
out of office and found a more compliant substitute. The persecution was 
renewed last July 21, when he was arrested, again illegally, at a funeral. He 
has been imprisoned for five months despite the government producing no 
evidence against him.

In August, Amnesty International adopted Father Gerry as a prisoner of 
conscience. In December, 42 U.S. representatives called for his immediate 
release, as have Sens. Ted Kennedy, Tom Harkin and Christopher Dodd, Human 
Rights First, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and the U.N. 
Commission on Human Rights. Demonstrations in Port-au-Prince, Miami, Boston, 
New York and San Francisco have called for his release. In late December alone, 
hundreds of letters asking for his immediate release flooded the offices of 
Haitian officials and the U.S. Embassy.

Definitive diagnosis

I visited Father Gerry just before Christmas because I had heard reports that 
his health was deteriorating. He told me first to think of fellow prisoners who 
may be in worse shape. He also insisted on praying, then singing, then 
introducing me to some of his jailers. ''Some of them are really quite nice,'' 
he said cheerfully. I finally examined him, obtained the necessary specimens 
and brought them to the laboratory.

When his neck first began to swell some months ago, he thought it was due to a 
beating he'd received in jail. But the swelling on both sides of his neck 
increased, followed by fatigue and swollen lymph nodes elsewhere.

A definitive diagnosis is in: Father Gerry has leukemia, possibly a rapidly 
progressive form. So he is not only a prisoner of conscience, one of hundreds 
in Haiti, but a sick prisoner who needs more than prayers and letters of 
support. He needs proper medical care and, probably, chemotherapy. As we know 
from long experience in central Haiti, it's hard enough to deliver chemotherapy 
anywhere in the country. It's simply not possible to do so in a Haitian prison.

Time is running out for a fine man who has done much to assuage the suffering 
of the Haitian poor. Those who know Haiti believe that it's well within the 
power of the U.S. administration, the Haitian government's principal 
international patron, to have Father Gerry released immediately for the medical 
attention he needs.

Expedient `suspects'

''I'm sure I'll be out of prison soon,'' he told me on Christmas Eve. ''But 
what about all the others? They need help too.'' What is needed is to have 
those calling the shots in Haiti -- many of them in the United States -- 
reverse the policies that have filled Haiti's prisons with expediently chosen 
''suspects'' against whom no charges have been presented. The way to start is 
to release Father Gerry for proper medical evaluation and care.

Paul Farmer, MD, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, has worked 
in Haiti for more than 20 years.