8974: Haiti: Released KID militant denounces plot to destabilize party (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Stanley Lucas <slucas@iri.org>

Haiti: Released KID militant denounces plot to destabilize party 
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Aug 27, 2001
Text of report by Haitian Metropole radio on 27 August 

[Announcer] Two KID [Convention for Democratic Unity] militants were released on Friday [24 August] following a court hearing. They denounced the conditions of their arrest. They now ask for the release of their four other colleagues. They reaffirm their determination to fight the Lavalas regime. Roselaure Aubourg said the following: 

[Aubourg - recording, in Creole] He [the judge] said he released me because I am a woman and I am not in a good state of health, and especially because I was on a hunger strike. The judge released my colleague Amitho Altidor because he is a new member of the party, and especially because he is a taxi driver who was just passing by. He said he is sending me home but he will summon me for a hearing again. As for the other partisans, the judge said he will hear the other detainees on Monday at the latest. They were sent back to the Port-au-Prince police station. 

[Unidentified journalist] Why did he keep the others in jail? 

[Aubourg] The case is not complete. Our lawyer Reynold Georges said that they apparently could not find the report drawn up by the justice of the peace. As I said, the operation took place while we were kept behind closed doors. We never saw what the police were doing. None of us signed the justice's report. It was all done illegally. Actually, they cannot even find the justice's report. Therefore, we say that it is a plot to destabilize KID as a political party. We will continue the fight until the end. As you know, when a bandit is about to die he becomes more wicked. They are trying to destroy us. Therefore, we are protecting ourselves and trying to avoid all the hard blows. 

Everybody knows that KID is a peaceful party that does not possess any weapons. Journalists always enter the place and they can testify that there has never been even an armed security guard at the gate. It was the same thing when we were at Camille Leon where we had a nice place to gather in. Now, this old building has no materials in it. We lost everything in the arson at our premises on Camille Leon. If we had money, we would have used it to set up a nice office. We would not use it to acquire the guns that [police spokesman] Jean Dady Simeon presented to the public. We would have used that money to help our militants and send our children to school. The police cannot say that they even found a document in the building. We only gather there to do politics. Nobody sleeps in there. There is no security body in there either. [End of recording] 

Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 27 Aug 01 

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.


>>> Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu> 08/28/01 01:16AM >>>


From: JRAuguste1@aol.com 

I am in favor of a general amnesty in Haiti. 

South Africa provided general amnesty to those who confessed their crimes. 

So amnesty yes, but only for those Haitian criminals who confess their crimes 
in detail. 

Short of that forget amnesty. 

While we are on this subject I often wonder why the Aristide government only 
concentrates on trials of the Raboteau genre: the so-called blood crimes. Why 
not go after some "grands mangeurs." Those who openly stole or are stealing 
from the people. Those who come to a government job with the shirt on their 
backs and end up wealthy overnight without any plausible explanation for 
their sudden wealth. Going after those kinds of government employees would 
really convince me of the present government's commitment to justice. 

What with the assistance of those foreign attorneys at the service of the 
Haitian government; Brian Concannon Jr., Ira Kurzban. That would really make 
a splash.