29113: Potemaksonje (News) Haiti's Police Prisoners: Not Preval's Fault, But His Problem (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

> From Potemaksonje
Potemaksonje@yahoo.com



Haiti's Political Prisoners: Not Preval's Fault, But
His Problem

JURIST Special Guest Columnist Brian Concannon Jr.,
Director of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti, says that although the political prisoners
lingering in Haiti's squalid jails are not the
byproduct of the policies of incoming President René
Préval, they are certainly his problem, drawing
criticism with each passing day not only from
international human rights groups, but also from
Haiti's urban poor.

Haiti?s new government issued a democracy dividend on
August 14 with the acquittal and release of four
political prisoners. Three months into constitutional
President René Préval?s term, most of the high-profile
members of Haiti?s Lavalas movement jailed by the
brutal Interim Government of Haiti over two years have
been released. But if the cases demonstrate the
democratic transition?s promise, they also illustrate
its pitfalls.

The high-profile cases were all easy calls from a
legal standpoint. They were in some ways easy from a
political standpoint as well, because President Préval
comes from the same Lavalas movement. Nevertheless,
the new government took three months to release the
prisoners, because of strong resistance within both
the justice system and Haitian civil society. That
resistance spells delays, and trouble, as Préval?s
government tackles the much harder and more numerous
cases of low-profile political prisoners.

The ?Easy Cases?

Activist and folksinger Annette Auguste (known as So
Ann) was released on August 14 after more than 27
months in jail. Ms. Auguste was arrested illegally in
May 2004, without a warrant and in the middle of the
night, by U.S. Marines who had entered the country in
the wake of Haiti?s February 2004 coup d?etat. The
Marines claimed she was threatening U.S. troops, but
never presented any proof. The IGH claimed she was
involved in sorcery and in violence during
demonstrations at the State University (Université de
l?Etat Haïtien, or ?UEH?) in December 2003. But after
investigating for two years, all the while refusing
motions for pre-trial release, the IGH was not able to
present a single witness or item of proof that Ms.
Auguste had anything to do with the UEH violence. In
the meantime, justice advocates in Haiti regularly
protested the unjust detention, and human rights
groups like Amnesty International campaigned abroad
for her release or trial.

Last March, the Leny Fredd?Herck, the chief prosecutor
in Port-au-Prince?s trial court, conceded that there
was ?no evidence, no indication and no presumption of
any involvement? by Ms. Auguste in the UEH incidents,
and recommended dropping the charges. But a judge
allied with the IGH sent the case to trial anyway,
claiming that Ms. Auguste?s admission that she
regularly organized demonstrations for Lavalas was
sufficient grounds to find her responsible for the UEH
violence, which allegedly involved some Lavalas
partisans. The defendants appealed, and at the appeals
court another prosecutor advocated sending the case to
trial, without citing any evidence. The Appeals Court
agreed with the latter recommendation, without
explaining why, and on August 14, the case went to
trial. At trial, no evidence was presented against Ms.
Auguste or any of her five co-defendants, not a single
witness appeared against them. A third prosecutor,
noting the obvious, asked the judge to acquit all,
which he did.

Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune was provisionally
released on July 27 after twenty-five months in
prison, most of it on a limited hunger strike. He
turned himself in to police twice: the first time in
June 2004, after hearing about a warrant for his
arrest on the radio, the second time in February 2005,
after he was forced from the prison at gunpoint during
a prison break. Mr. Neptune was so determined to clear
his name through the justice system that in late 2004
he refused a government offer to fly him out of the
country for medical treatment, fearing he would not be
allowed back into the country (and prison) following
the treatment.

Haiti?s Constitution guarantees all prisoners an
initial hearing within 48 hours of arrest, but Mr.
Neptune did not get his for a year. He was formally
charged 15 months after the arrest, in September 2005.
The UN human rights mission in Haiti quickly called
the charging document unconstitutional on its face.
His codefendants appealed, and although they were
entitled to a hearing and decision within a few weeks,
the appeals court declined to hear the case for seven
months. The court finally held a hearing in May, where
the prosecutor recommended dropping all charges
against Mr. Neptune, citing procedural irregularities
and an absence of proof. But the court has still not
yet issued a decision, 11 months after the appeal.

In the meantime, calls for Mr. Neptune?s release came
from UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, human rights
groups throughout the world, and even from the United
States, the IGH?s principal international patron. The
IGH managed to deflect the protests, claiming
deference to the judicial system. Haiti?s elected
government, installed last June 6, found these calls,
and the even louder calls coming from its own
grassroots supporters, harder to resist. In late July,
the Minister of Justice asked the prosecutor to
request the appeals court to provisionally release Mr.
Neptune on humanitarian grounds, to seek medical
treatment. The court granted this request, and Mr.
Neptune was transferred to a hospital run by UN
peacekeepers.

Unfinished Transition

In most contexts, the pre-trial release of a prisoner
who had twice turned himself in and once refused to
leave the country, or the acquittal of a defendant
against whom no evidence was presented, would be
routine. But the Neptune and Auguste cases count as
hard-won victories in today?s Haiti. Although the
legal merits of the decisions were uncontestable, a
powerful constituency installed within the justice
system and without by the IGH and its allies survived
Haiti?s democratic transition, and continues to resist
the liberation of political prisoners.

The most obvious resistance to freeing prisoners lies
within the judiciary itself. The IGH won no power in
this year?s Presidential and Legislative elections,
but it maintained power in the judicial branch by
packing the courts with sympathetic judges throughout
its two-year reign. In 2004 and 2005, the Minister of
Justice illegally pushed out trial judges appointed by
Haiti?s democratic governments and replaced them with
people willing to do the IGH?s bidding. In December,
2005, in what has been dubbed ?the Friday Night
Massacre?, the Prime Minister replaced half of the
Supreme Court in one fell swoop, after the Court ruled
against the IGH in a controversial case. Both the
firings and the executive?s unilateral naming of
replacements were as unconstitutional in Haiti as they
would have been in the United States. But the judges
remain on the bench

President Préval has been reluctant to respond to
complaints about the IGH?s judges, declaring that he
will not answer the IGH?s interference with judicial
independence with his own interference. But respect
for the separation of powers does not require
acceptance of the illegal status quo. To the contrary,
the Constitution requires action, to ensure that
current judges have been approved through its
procedures. Supreme Court judges, for example, must be
chosen by the President from a list of three
candidates per seat proposed by the Senate. The judges
named to the seats vacated by the Friday Night
Massacre were simply appointed by the Prime Minister,
with no parliamentary consultation. Now that Haiti has
a constitutional Senate and a constitutional
President, it should have constitutionally-appointed
judges.

There is also a constituency within Haitian civil
society for keeping the political prisoners in jail.
Some student groups, including the Haitian Federation
of University Students (FEUH) had been active in the
campaign that led to the February 2004 coup d?etat,
and had filed complaints in the case against Annette
Auguste and her co-defendants. But when the judge
investigating the accusations summoned the students to
testify, they refused. They also failed to appear at
trial on August 14. But three days after the
acquittal, FEUH members organized a well-attended
press conference to protest the decision.

Another organization, the Réseau National de Defense
des Droits Humains, (RNDDH) is playing a similar role
in Mr. Neptune?s prosecution. RNDDH used to be known
as NCHR-Haiti, and developed a good reputation for
human rights work during Haiti?s 1991-1994 de facto
dictatorship. But the organization became increasingly
politicized, and in the wake of the 2004 coup d?etat
it cooperated with the IGH in persecuting Lavalas
activists. The persecution became so flagrant that
NCHR-Haiti?s former parent organization, New
York-based NCHR, publicly repudiated the Haitian group
and asked it to change its name. RNDDH changed its
name, but maintained its dogged pursuit of Mr. Neptune
and other Lavalas members. The organization filed a
suit on behalf of a group of people claiming to be
victims of a massacre a few days before the coup, with
the help of a substantial grant from the Canadian
government. RNDDH?s legal team tenaciously opposed, in
court and in the press, the prosecutor?s
recommendation to drop the case, and even the request
for humanitarian release.

Political Obstacles

Beyond this political polarization, Haiti is now
afflicted with an increase in violent common crime.
The crime wave has many causes, including
demographics, poverty, urbanization and the IGH?s
diversion of police energy to persecution of political
dissidents. But its effect is public outrage,
especially among middle-class Haitians, and urgent
calls for the government to re-establish security.

Pressure to get tough on crime, combined with the
resistance to freeing the political prisoners, will
make tackling the remaining political prisoner cases
extremely difficult for Haiti?s government. Hundreds
of people, mostly young men from the poor
neighborhoods that support Lavalas, sit in Haiti?s
jails with no justification for their detention. Under
the IGH, police routinely swept though neighborhoods,
arresting young men by the dozens. The police, and
even UN Peacekeepers, routinely made warrantless
arrests based on uncorroborated tips from informers.

The Hard Cases

Some of these prisoners were arrested because they
were suspected Lavalas activists, others because they
were suspected criminals. The problem for the
low-profile political prisoners is that it is not easy
to tell the illegally-held suspected dissidents from
the illegally-held suspected common criminals. Most of
the low-profile political prisoners were involved in
politics at the neighborhood level, where organizing
is informal. They may not have an official position or
title that clearly establishes their political role,
so it is harder to establish a political motive for
their arrest.

Haiti?s Constitution and international law do not
distinguish among types of illegally-held prisoners.
Instead, they require that all prisoners who are not
detained for a legally adequate reason be released
immediately. But a general, large-scale release would
be politically difficult for the government. It would
inevitably put some criminals on the street, adding to
the reality of the crime problem, but more important,
providing government critics an opportunity to blame
any crime committed over the next few months on the
releases.

The government could sharply reduce the number of
political prisoners by installing a fast-track
procedure for prosecutors to review cases of alleged
political persecution and recommend dismissals where
appropriate. In Haiti?s notoriously slow and corrupt
justice system, expedited procedures would require the
Ministry of Justice to lean hard on its prosecutors,
but the Ministry would be leaning with popular
support. Grassroots human rights organizations
recently delivered a tool to help identify and
prioritize political prisoner cases: on August 24, a
coalition of groups presented officials with a list of
political prisoners. The human rights organizations?
conclusions will need to be confirmed through an
independent judicial process, but the list is
certainly a good place to start, and will provide a
yardstick for measuring the progress of releases.

Conclusion

Political prisoners are not President Préval?s fault,
but they are very much his problem. Every day they
spend in Haiti?s squalid prisons exposes his
government to more criticism, from international human
rights groups, but also from Haiti?s urban poor, who
are the strongest constituency for the both the
political prisoners, and numerically, for the new
government. They understand the difficulties of the
justice system, and will be patient, but only as long
as they believe that the system is moving in the right
direction.

The release of the prominent political prisoners in
July and August provided some proof that the new
government was moving in the right direction. But the
goodwill they generated will not last forever.
President Préval and his government must show more
proof, by moving quickly to submit illegally-appointed
judges to a constitutional approval process and by
instructing prosecutors to prioritize the files where
there is a credible claim that the defendant was
arrested for his political activities.


Ronald St. Jean of the Groupe de Defense Des Droits
des Prisonniers Politiques in front of the National
Penitentiary, with a list of political prisoners.

Members of the Kolektif Fanmi Prizonye Politik
demonstrate outside the Penitentiary

Political Prisoners Annette Auguste and Paul Raymond
In Court

Human rights lawyer Brian Concannon Jr. directs the
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti,
www.ijdh.org


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