12187: News flash! - Violent incidents at Guacimal plantation/journalistswounded (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

News flash!  - Violent attack on Guacimal plantation workers; journalists
injured and detained by police. (Issued by the Haiti Support Group - 29 May
2002)

Reports are coming in of a violent confrontation at the Guacimal company
orange plantation in St. Raphael, northern Haiti. Two people have been
killed, and many injured, some of them seriously. Two journalists, Darwin St.
Julien from Haiti Progres newspaper, and Allan Deshommes from Radio Atlantic,
were among those seriously injured. They are being detained by the local
police without charge, even though a doctor has advised they should seek
urgent specialist treatment.

On the morning of 27 May, a group of Guacimal plantation workers, together
with activists from the Batay Ouvriye First of May union federation, arrived
at the plantation to allocate plots of land between the orange trees to local
workers and peasants who use it to grow basic food crops.(This practice has
taken place during the non-harvest 'off' season for many previous decades.)

Reports indicate that the workers were set upon by a group of men that
included members of the local rural councils and plantation guards, acting
under the orders of a local big landowner. The workers and union members
tried to defend themselves, but were routed by the attackers, some who were
armed with clubs and firearms. The exact nature of the casualties sustained
on both sides, for the moment, remains unclear

The two journalists were given emergency first aid by local people, but the
local police took the journalists into custody "for their own protection".
The severity of their injuries obliged the police to take them to a hospital
on 28 May. Although a doctor recommended immediate specialist medical care,
the two are still being detained by the police, apparently on the basis of
St. Raphael's Lavalas Family mayor's declaration that he knows the
journalists to be "terrorists".

(sources: Batay Ouvriye, Haiti Progres.)

More details will be provided as they become available. Suggestions for
action will also be forwarded shortly.

Charles Arthur - Haiti Support Group

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The Haiti Support Group - solidarity with the Haitian people's struggle for
justice, participatory democracy and equitable development, since 1992.
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