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From: K M Ives <kives@toast.net>

TRANSCRIPT OF INTERVIEWS ON HAITI: THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES
Broadcast on WBAI, 99.5 FM every Saturday from 3 - 4 p.m.
Hosts: Margareth Dominique, Kim Ives and Roger Leduc
Engineer: Marquez Osson
Contributor: Karine Jean-Pierre, Monique Fanfan
(Back programs can be heard online by visiting our archives at www.wbai.org/archives. Scroll down to select Haiti: The Struggle Continues on Saturday afternoon.) 

PROGRAM OF OCTOBER 28, 2006
(WBAI Fundraising Special from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.)
1) An interview with Father Gérard Jean-Juste, a former political prisoner of Haiti's de facto regime of Gérard Latortue. 


INTERVIEW WITH FATHER GERARD JEAN-JUSTE
MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:Father Gérard Jean-Juste is a Catholic priest who ran Saint Claire's Church for the Poor in Port-au-Prince, Ha ti until his arrest on July 21, 2005 while helping to officiate at the funeral of an assassinated journalist. He became one of Haiti's most prominent political prisoners, being held for 192 days without any formal charges or trial.
KIM IVES: Finally, faced with mounting international pressure, Haiti's de facto government provisionally released Jean-Juste on January 29 of this year to seek medical treatment for leukemia in Miami, Florida. Nine months later, Jean-Juste has undergone grueling but largely successful operations and chemotherapy to treat his cancer. Last night he spoke at a rally of some 300 Haitians at Holy Innocents Church in the East Flatbush neighborhood of Brooklyn, his first public appearance in New York since his release from jail.
ROGER LEDUC: He is presently on Long Island where he will be speaking at Chez Mireille Restaurant at 170 Post Avenue in Westbury, NY from 2:30 to 5:30 tomorrow afternoon. Although he had planned to join us in our WBAI studio today, Father Jean-Juste is feeling rather weak and tired, so is instead joining us by phone from Westbury. Hello, Gerry Jean-Juste, are you there?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: Yes, I am. Good afternoon to you and to everyone, and I am happy to be with you. I wish that I could be physically present, but due to some circumstances, we have to do it by phone. Thank you so much for allowing me to share this hour with you all. 

KIM IVES: And thank you for joining us, Jerry.

GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: You are welcome, Kim.
KIM IVES: First, can you tell us: how is your health following the treatment you've been undergoing for the past nine months?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: It has been very, very difficult for me during the past months, but with the help of the medical staff, with the help of God, all the friends, and I survived. And right now I have finished the chemotherapy treatments, and at the last treatment the CAT-scan test revealed, according to the doctor, that I am clean of the leukemia and of the CLM.
Also the doctor told me [to] be a little bit careful because the white blood cell level is still too low, so I am under medication to bring the white cells up. So I hope at the next check-up, everything will work out fine. I am so grateful to God Almighty and to you all that right now I feel that I should go to Haiti right away! As soon as the doctors all agree, I will go back to Haiti.
But some doctors say that I can go for a short stay - two or three days - until I can readjust myself. That, I agree with it. Some other physicians disagree about going back without recuperating fully.
KIM IVES: And we're speaking with Father Gérard Jean-Juste... Father Jean-Juste, can you briefly recount for our listeners the circumstances of your second arrest by the de facto authorities in July of 2005?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: Of course. It is true that, now, as we are heading ahead, and the wound is getting healed, I can say that on July 21, 2005, the political situation was very tense in Haiti and there were plots all over by the government to chase Lavalas people. Also, they were forced to go into elections, and they thought that the best way to win an election was to not allow the Lavalas people to participate. Also they were cracking [down] on the leadership of the Lavalas people, so we would run away, leave the ground free to them.
There are some of us who said: "No way! We are going to stand up and demand that rights of everyone be respected."
Meanwhile also, many of us Lavalas people and good Haitians, we try to continue services to the needy people. So not only we talk about human rights but we are also trying to put everything that is demanded into practice.
So that day, I tried to pay honor to the journalist Jacques Roche because I knew of him. On his father's side, we are from the same town of Cavaillon. So I thought it was a good idea to pay my respects and to go to the church and pray for him.
It is true that I was warned by my bishop that I should not leave my parish, St. Claire, to go to another place because they were plotting to kill me. The plan was to stop me anyplace and accuse me of something and then shoot me to death. That was the plan. So I was aware of it, but that day, I decided I must pay respects. So I thought that nothing would happen.
Then I was arriving at the church and I was about to accompany the Bishop Thomas, and some other priests were there. Then suddenly, there were some members of the de facto government there, as well as some people that we know, and I won't call names. They started yelling and calling names. At that moment, some people, some friends advised me to move back from the place where I was by the... where I was paying respects to the cadavre [body] of Jacques. So I moved back, and I went by the small altar, knelt and started praying.
While I was praying on my knees, I was praying, they surrounded me and they wanted to kill me. Then one of them, who was a little bit sympathetic to me, came to my ear and said: "Hey Gerry, what I heard they're going to you, you better move out. So I tried to move out. I listened to him. I tried to move out, backward, as they had surrounded me. The backward position was the best for me because it gave [put] my back to the wall and tried to go on the steps going uphill to the rectory. So that way, I managed. 

A lawyer, Bill Quigley, was accompanying me also that day, July 21st.
They started beating me, throwing all kind of projectiles at me. At a certain time, a brave young woman, coming from nowhere, crossed the crowd, came to me, I should say, crossed the mob, the mob, coming to me, crossing the attackers and coming to me, yelling at them: "Don't do that to a priest!"
Then she jumped at my neck and started praying with me with her rosary in one hand. She took some blows for me.
At a certain time, one guy, according to what she reported, was about to stab me with a long pick from my heart side, my left side. Then I was lucky. The pick got stuck in the lady's jacket so it didn't reach my heart, didn't reach my body. So I was lucky.
So there was another one who pulled out his gun. He was about to shoot me, but he didn't have space, and I heard he was he was caught by the MINUSTAH, the UN troops, and they released him, let him go.
So we finally arrived at the rectory. At that time, some police and CIVPOL officers - CIVPOL is the group, the police corps of UN; they called them CIVPOL at that time; they changed their name now - and they tried to keep the crowd away. And finally, I managed to hide myself at the rectory.
Then, later on, the UN people, the police told me that they were going to take me to the police headquarters for my security. According to what they said, they were about to burn and attack the rectory.
So, I didn't want to leave. Another priest friend of mine didn't want me to leave. They put pressure on me - when I say they, the security agents put the pressure on me - then I left for the police headquarters.
Arriving there, I thought they were going to take care of me - as I was the victim - to offer me friendly hospitality. Then what I discovered, I was there from 11:30 a.m. - every time I asked to go home, they refused. Then by 9:30 p.m., I was under arrest and they threw me in the police cell at the headquarters of the Police in Pétion-Ville.
So it was terrible, in a very small cell, and, well, it was... I don't remember the exact number, but it was over 40 prisoners in that cell, ladies as well as some young people, as some young adults, and some of them in very bad shape. So this is where I had to find a place to sleep or to stay or to accommodate myself.
We started praying and some of the people in the crowd of prisoners, they knew me and we prayed....
The next day, they rushed me to Haiti's attorney [general]'s office, then ordered me to be held at the National Penitentiary. When I arrived there, there was a big place called Titanic, a big building, in brick, built recently. And they threw me at the bottom of it in an isolated room. So this is where I was for a while with some other prisoners. In the same area, they call it "isolation."
There, we suffered, I suffered a lot. I met other people who were suffering. There were some prisoners they kept under a little chamber, under the steps... You heard cries coming from the souls of the human beings, young prisoners. Some of them were suffering from mental illness. Instead of receiving treatment, they mistreated them all and beat them up, and left them naked around, so it was a terrible scene. It was inhumanity. 

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE: You may continue, Father Jean-Juste.
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: This is a place - the National Penitentiary - which is overcrowded. It is supposed to take about 600 prisoners. During that period that I was there, I think there were over 2000 prisoners.
So I have been trying my best, trying to stop some Haitians from beating the prisoners, not to mistreat them. I reported that. Sometimes I yell. I try to get attention [for them] not to mistreat some young prisoners. But that was terrible, that was terrible.
Also, those who are ill in jail receive no medical treatment. It has been awful. And if I say that, since my arrest on July 21, 2005 up until mid-August, I hadn't seen any doctor at all until I fainted. The prisoners themselves had to carry me to the medical clinic.
There, when I woke up, I saw a doctor who was very nice to me. He tried to help and gave me some medications. Then I returned to my cell.
From there, I decided to go on a hunger strike, for many reasons. First, I
met a group of Haitian returnees - the deportees. They forgot them in their area. They placed them in an area at the National Penitentiary and then they just forgot them. Nobody knew about them. So I wanted to attract attention to their plight and to give them hope at least. For those of us who were in the other cells, we could expect once a week visits from our friends and parents every Wednesday. But [the deportees], people don't even know they are in Haiti, and some of them are there for months and months under very bad conditions.
They were getting desperate and we tried to encourage them. We tried to give them hope.
So I went on a hunger strike for this reason and for many other reasons: to fight overcrowding, to make sure that they allow us to pray in jail, because, at a certain time, they tried to stop us from praying in jail. And so we managed to gain this right. 

So the detainees were praying and singing loud and clear when I left this jail.
So the hunger strike took place, but it was not a full hunger strike, a total hunger strike. We accepted to eat bread and drink water.
And at that moment when I was passing the news around, they caught me and decided to remove me from the National Penitentiary that day. They sent me to another jail: the Annex of the National Penitentiary in Pacot where I met former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and Jacques Mathelier, Representative Amanus Mayette, and many others who were there.
So I went from jail to jail. Usually they tried to keep me quiet, but even in jail, I was not quiet. I tried to do my job. So my health deteriorated so much that I kept losing consciousness. And then, at a certain time, they offered me some medical attention, because my neck had swollen so much and I had other swollen parts all over my body. I was in bad shape, in very bad shape.
MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:And we are speaking to Father Gérard Jean-Juste who was formerly imprisoned in Haiti... Father Jean-Juste, I know you mentioned the other political prisoners. Beside the release of Annette Auguste, are there any other prisoners that will be released soon? Is there any headway being made to releasing some of the hundreds of prisoners in Haiti's jails?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: There are some prisoners who have names - when I say names, they [are well-known]. They are famous. But there are the little ones. They are in jail: they need attention. We need to obtain freedom for all the political prisoners, the ones with names, such as [former] Representative [deputy] Amanus Mayette, [popular organization leader] René Civil - now, because he came from exile and they wanted to arrest him. He got trapped and arrested. You know that in Haiti whenever they want to arrest you, they will arrest you first, and then look for the charges later. 

MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:Do you know anything further about the case of René Civil?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: I can tell you where they are as of today, but he is languishing in the isolation area of the National Penitentiary. I heard that his health is pretty good, and he is also there with Representative Amanus Mayette in the annex of the National Penitentiary, where I was, where the former Prime Minister Neptune was also. Now they closed it and returned everybody to the main National Penitentiary.
MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:How do you analyze the present political situation in Haiti? What score do you give President René Préval after five months in office or more?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: President Préval has his own style. You know, he is a president that I support. I am caught now....
When you support a legitimate president, a democratically elected president, then how to apply pressure in order to obtain good... more results. I'm proud of many things he has done, but on the political prisoners, I find him too slow. I would like him to move farther, but he has his own way. He tries to work with the judges, with the lawyers, with the courts, with their staff, tries to educate them about doing their jobs. He should not impose the release of prisoners. That should come to the court.
But the court has its way to take business. It is an awful situation, where you can buy justice in Haiti. Some of the judges, some of the lawyers, sometimes, they don't pay attention too much if they see you don't have money to offer. That's unfortunate. But we hope that with President Préval, the reform will continue as he wants it, as he wishes it. I hope the reform will continue, and we can have a proper judicial system in Haiti.
MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:Finally Father Jean-Juste... Have you been in touch with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who remains in exile in South Africa? Do you still think he should return to Haiti? If so, when?
GERARD JEAN-JUSTE: Definitely. I've been in touch with President Aristide many times. He calls, and we call, and for the sake of South Africa, for the sake of the Haitian people, for President Aristide and his family, for justice, he should be returned to Haiti. Imagine that! All Haitians, we have been so docile, so quiet. They come to Haiti. They kidnap our president and we behave. There is no war. We could not go to war anyway.
Imagine that in some other countries, such as in the Middle East, if one soldier is kidnaped, you could have a whole country being destroyed, you could have people on both sides being killed. Awful, to see so many human beings being killed for a decision, for a crime that is committed by one or two individuals.
So myself, I call for the big countries to stop behaving like zenglendos [thugs]. In Haiti, we call them zenglendos. They do whatever they want, like the big man in the street. They do whatever they want. They have the big guns, they have the power. They mistreat the small nations.
MARGARETH DOMINIQUE:On that note, we're going to have to leave it there, Fr. Jean-Juste. We'd like to thank you very much for joining us. We invite you next time again to join us at Haiti: The Struggle Continues.....
KIM IVES: And we should mention that Father Jean-Juste will be speaking at 170 Post Avenue in Westbury, NY, tomorrow afternoon, between 2:30 and 5:30 p.m..