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27460: Hermantin(News)Provisionally freed Haitian priest, out of Miami hospital, calls (fwd)
lhermantin@hotmail.com
Posted on Sat, Feb. 04, 2006
Provisionally freed Haitian priest, out of Miami hospital, calls for fair
elections
BY THERESA BRADLEY
tbradley@MiamiHerald.com
On the eve of Tuesday's presidential elections in Haiti, newly freed prisoner
and Catholic priest Gérard Jean-Juste called on Haitians to vote ''and then
move on'' to bring violence-wracked Haiti forward.
Jean-Juste, granted a provisional medical release from a Port-au-Prince prison
last weekend, returned Sunday to Miami and spent the week undergoing tests for
leukemia. He was released from Jackson Memorial Hospital on Friday.
Doctors there said they are ''optimistic'' about his chances for recovery.
Appearing fit, but with a pulpy pink scar fresh across the left side of his
neck -- the result of a biopsy performed this week -- Jean-Juste thanked
supporters who had lobbied for his freedom and called on the interim government
to free those in Haiti still behind bars.
''I passed through a little crack in the freedom door, but we have to have it
wide open for the other political prisoners,'' he said.
First and foremost on his mind, though, he said, are Tuesday's elections --
Haiti's first since 2000, which pit former president René Préval against
businessman Charles Henri Baker and a handful of other candidates.
Jean-Juste declined to publicly endorse a candidate in the race, which falls on
his 60th birthday, and in which he said he is unable to vote.
But like Préval, Jean-Juste is a longtime supporter of ousted Haitian president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, with whom he said he discussed politics by phone this
week from his hospital bed.
''Let us pray that most of us Haitians will use our voting power to freely
elect a president and then move on to bring Haiti worthy as all the other
nations,'' he said.
Jean-Juste meanwhile called the incumbent interim government of Prime Minister
Gérard Latortue worse than the Duvalier dictatorship of the 1960's and 1970's.
Both regimes are responsible for bloodshed, but at least the Duvaliers didn't
jail those who, like him, have tried to provide services to the poor, he said.
Jean-Juste was jailed on July 21 for his alleged involvement in the kidnapping
and murder of prominent Haitian journalist Jacques Roche.
A Haitian investigative judge last month dismissed the most serious of those
charges against him, after an investigation uncovered no evidence linking him
to the plot.
But the same judge then indicted him for illegal weapons possession, charging
that Jean-Juste had refused to disclose the names of his gun-toting security
guards.
Those guards, according to Jean-Juste's attorney, Mario Joseph, were in fact
employees of the National Palace, and as such, authorized to bear arms.
A new government could dismiss the charges pending against Jean-Juste. His
attorney, meanwhile, is appealing the case.
Jean-Juste's release comes on a wave of public and diplomatic pressure --
including grassroots demonstrations in Miami and high-level meetings between
Haitian officials and representatives of the U.S. Congress and State
Department.
Many of the priest's backers say he was jailed on false charges to keep him
from running as a candidate.
''I wasn't looking to be president, just to serve,'' he said Friday. ''There's
a beautiful song,'' he added when asked if he would consider a future run.
``One day at a time.''
In the meantime, Jean-Juste wants to return to Haiti. ''The sooner, the
better,'' he said, though he is likely to stay in the United States for months
of medical treatment.
Doctors at Jackson Memorial this week diagnosed him with chronic lymphocytic
leukemia, and recommended a six-month course of chemotherapy.
''He has one of the best kinds of blood conditions that we can control,'' said
Yeon Soong Ahn, Jean-Juste's hematologist at the hospital. ``I'm very, very
optimistic that we're going to keep him healthy and well for many years to
come.''