28598: Anonymous (Article) Civil Servants fired under Latortue protest in PaP. July 2006. (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

AHP:  July 10, 2006.   Civil servants unjustly fired take to streets
of Port-au-prince to call for their reintegration and for the
liberation of all political prisoners.     AHP News July 10, 2006
Eng. translation   http://www.ahphaiti.org

Port-au-Prince, July 10, 2006 - (AHP)  Employees who were ³unjustly
dismissed² from public administration over the last two years
organized a non-violent march in the streets of Port-au-Prince to
urge the new authorities to reintegrate them and to liberate all
political prisoners.
The march, organized by the ³Plateforme résistence populaire du Bel-
Air² (Bel- Air Popular Resistance) along with the "greater Lavalas
movement" and the "coordination of progressive organizations", set
out fromn the populist district of Saint-Martin and finished up at
Constitution Square near the National Palace.  Participants called on
President René Préval to ³understand the  necessity to urgently
reverse the injustices and severe wrongs inflicted on hundreds of
people and their families for political reasons.²  These citizens
were fired solely because they were deemed partisan to the Aristide
government following his forced departure on February 29, 2004, the
demonstrators said.  Several of those dismissed from their positions
with the national  telephone service (Téléco), the national old-age
insurance officer (ONA), the national port authority (APN), were
subsequently arrested when they asked for damages.  ³We are not
against the outreach policy of the president, but this
policy cannot be accompanied by a strategy to close off all those who
were sacrificed and who were used as cannon fodder to promote a new
future,² cried the demonstrators at the Constitution Square.  Others
called on the new government to ³resist the opportunistic
schemers who want to marginalize their voices as was done so
skillfully under the Aristide government.²  A spokesperson for Fanmi
Lavalas, René Monplaisir, gave his support for the rights of those
employees unfairly laid off by the former regime who wish to assert
their rights.
They nevertheless applauded the new authorities for creating
commissions to study the employees¹ files in an effort to come to a
solution.
René Monplaisir announced an important meeting with various
representatives of the popular sectors to help advance this struggle,
he said. "We will continue to mobilize to ensure the rights of all
citizens,²  said Lavalas activists.  Activists at the July 10, 2006
demonstration also called for the ³release of hundreds of citizens,
including former Prime Minister Yvon  Neptune, who has been in
detention for almost the entire two years of the interim  regime led
by Gerard Latortue because of their political views.²  AHP  July 10,
2006, 12:30 PM