28748: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti's jailed former PM scolds new president (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, July 26 (Reuters) - Haiti's former Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune, on a hunger strike, said on Wednesday the new
government would be partly to blame if he died while imprisoned on charges
he calls false and politically motivated.
     "I am a political prisoner. Whether I get out of jail dead or alive
will be on the government's decision," Neptune told journalists from his
cell at the National Penitentiary annex.
     "My case has nothing to do with justice," he said. "It's up to the
government to free me."
     Neptune, who has been on a hunger strike for some 15 months but was
taking liquids, appeared exhausted. He wore a blue T-shirt and beige
shorts, and lay on a small mattress on the floor with two pillows under his
head.
     He said his arrest in June 2004 was a political decision by
U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and former Justice
Minister Bernard Gousse.
     He served under President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who was driven out
in February 2004 during an armed rebellion. Neptune was detained on
accusations that he masterminded what Aristide's opponents called a
massacre on Feb. 11, 2004, in La Scierie, a small village 60 miles (95 km)
north of Port-au-Prince.
     Neptune has repeatedly denied the accusations and has never been
tried. He complained that the international community that once championed
his case had abandoned him.
     "I used to see many diplomats from the U.S. State Department and
others, but I don't see them anymore," he said.
     Neptune accused the administration of President Rene Preval, who took
office in May, of continuing the "reign of injustice."
     He said the new administration would bear part of the blame if he died
in prison because Preval has the constitutional authority to grant amnesty.
     "When you know what to do to prevent an innocent from dying in jail
and you refuse to do it, you will become an accomplice in the death," said
Neptune.
     Preval, who was elected in February, said earlier this week that
efforts were being made to free Neptune but did not provide further detail.