25008: Mason (article) Yvon Neptune Nears Death: Clearing the Fences in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From  Marilyn Mason (MariLinc@aol.com)


Yvon  Neptune Nears Death: Clearing  the Fences in Haiti

By  BRIAN CONCANNON, Jr.
CounterPunch
http://www.counterpunch.org
May  5, 2005


Yvon  Neptune's last meal may have been on April 17. Haiti's most recent
constitutional Prime Minister, now its most prominent political prisoner,
stopped eating eighteen days ago to protest ten months of illegal
imprisonment.
He
is weak, emaciated and near death -- his internal organs are failing. He has
vowed not to eat until the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) drops the charges
 against him; charges that it has refused to pursue. The IGH, coming under
increasing pressure and looking for a compromise, offered to fly Neptune  out
of the country for medical treatment and exile last weekend. But the
government would not drop the charges, so Neptune  refused to leave.

The  IGH has chosen a precarious place to take this stand. Neptune  was
arrested pursuant to a valid warrant last June 27 (he turned himself in when
he

heard about it on the radio), but since then the government has not taken  even

the first step in prosecuting the case against him. Although Haiti's
constitution requires that a judge confirm any detention within forty-eight
hours,
155 forty-eight hour periods have elapsed without Neptune  seeing the judge on
his case.

There  is scant evidence that the crime of which Mr. Neptune is accused, the
so-called  "La Scierie Massacre" even happened. The accusations arose out of
violence in  the provincial city of St.  Marc  in February, 2004, during a
rebellion against Mr. Neptune's government. On  February 7, an armed
anti-government group called RAMICOS took over the St. Marc  police station.
Two
days
later, police reinforcements reclaimed the station, and  that afternoon the
Prime
Minister flew to the city to give a press conference  and try to reassure the
population. Two days after that, on February 11, RAMICOS  clashed again with
police and with members of Bale Wouze, a pro-government  group, in the St. Marc

neighborhood of La Scierie. By almost all accounts, a few  people on both
sides were killed. By many accounts the majority of deaths were  on the RAMICOS

side. No one has presented evidence that Mr. Neptune was involved  with the
clash in any way.

Two  weeks later, Neptune's  boss, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had been
kidnapped to the Central  African Republic  on a U.S.  government jet, and
American Marines controlled Haiti.  Mr. Neptune stayed in office for a few days

and cooperated with the transition  to the unelected government, hoping to
avoid further bloodshed. In the meantime,  a non-governmental organization
called
NCHR-Haiti, an IGH ally and ferocious  critic of Neptune's  government,
announced that there had been a massacre in La Scierie in which 50  people had
been
killed.

Journalists  who were in St. Marc on February 11 and 12 reported no sign of
such a massacre.  Louis Joinet, the UN Human Rights Commission's Independent
Expert on Haiti,  concluded there was not a massacre, but a fight between two
groups. But  NCHR-Haiti insisted that the case be prosecuted. The IGH, which
had

an agreement  with NCHR-Haiti to prosecute anyone the organization denounced,
obliged by  arresting Mr. Neptune along with the former Minister of the
Interior, a former  member of Parliament and several others.

NCHR-Haiti  received a $100,000 grant from the Canadian government (one of
the IGH's three  main supporters, along with the U.S.  and France) to pursue
the

La Scierie case. The organization hired a lawyer and  former opposition
Senator to represent the victims, and kept up the pressure in  the press, even
denouncing the government for allowing Neptune  to receive medical treatment at
a
UN hospital. This persecution of Neptune  went so far that NCHR-Haiti's parent
organization in the U.S.  publicly disowned it and requested that it change
its name.

In  the meantime, Neptune  had an adventurous ten months in prison. He
survived at least two reported  assassination attempts, a December massacre by
guards and police in a nearby  cellblock, a February prison break in which he
was
removed from the prison at  gunpoint (he turned himself in, again, as soon as
he could), and his first  hunger strike, which he ended in March after three
weeks when he believed he had  been promised freedom. He was not brought to
court.

The  Interim Government keeps Neptune  in jail for a case it declines to
pursue and cannot prove despite an impressive  mobilization of world opinion.
UN

Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the UN Security  Council, the CARICOM countries,
human rights groups like Amnesty International,  religious leaders and
ordinary citizens throughout the world have called on the  IGH to let Neptune
go
to
trial or let him go free. Even U.S. Assistant Secretary  of State Roger
Noriega, one of the regime's most steadfast foreign supporters,  announced as
far
back as July that the IGH needed to prove its case or drop  it.

If  the IGH is taking a stand on precarious ground, so is Mr. Neptune. His
enormous  and dangerous sacrifice has not gained much media attention for him
or

his  cause. If he accepted the offer of exile, he could fight indefinitely
from  abroad, if he dies he will complete his enemies' efforts to silence him.

Clearing his name is unnecessary -- it is obvious that there never was a case
against him -- but starving to death would not do it.

But Neptune's  hunger strike is not really about clearing his name, it is
about clearing  everyone off the fences. The Haitian government straddles one
fence by locking  up its enemies while avoiding the legal consequences of that
policy. Hundreds of  political prisoners sit in Haiti's  jails, many with a
judge's release order sitting in their files. Next to most of  them, Yvon
Neptune
is fortunate -- their detention is just as illegal, probably  even more
dangerous, and with their lower profiles, they could hunger strike to  the
bitter
end without anyone outside of Haiti  caring. Even those prisoners are
fortunate,

next to the hundreds, if not  thousands of others that the Haitian police
have executed on the spot in the  last year, for demonstrating peacefully,
organizing for democracy, or for being  young and male in a poor neighborhood.
Neptune's  hunger strike is forcing the government to choose, to choose between

complying  with the law and setting him free or publicly, illegally and
terminally  depriving him of his rights.

The  IGH's international patrons, especially the U.S.,  France, Canada,
straddle the fence by talking about human rights for Neptune and other
Haitians,

while avoiding the consequences of their support for the brutal IGH. Those
countries, along with the UN, are the government's principal butresses -- they

arm and protect the police, fund the government payroll and defend the IGH in
the international community. If any of those countries conditioned its
continued  help on Mr. Neptune's release (or threatened to bundle the interim
President to  the Central  African Republic), Neptune  would be free instantly.

Neptune's  strike is showing that these countries cannot simultaneously support

their  avowed human rights principles and a dictatorial regime, and it is
forcing them  choose.

The  citizens of the U.S., Canada  and France  are also straddling a fence --
we believe in justice and democracy, and in  freedom for political prisoners,
but we avoid the fact that we are part of the  problem. Our governments are
supporting the persecution of Yvon Neptune and so  many others in our name with

our tax dollars, and we are, for the most part,  doing very little about it.
The hunger strike is forcing us to choose between  actively working for
Neptune's  liberation or passively paying for his imprisonment.

There  are signs of movement along the fence-line. Last weekend's offer of
exile shows  that the IGH certainly fears the consequences of Neptune's  death.

On Wednesday, the previously silent Human Rights Division of the UN  Mission
in Haiti  declared that "since the beginning of the procedure until today, the
fundamental  rights, according to national and international standards, have
not been  respected in the case of Mr. Neptune." The same day the Organization
of American  States, which had previously refrained from criticizing the IGH,
noted the  case's "serious moral and political implications for the Haitian
government and  for the international community."

Neptune  has been getting help with his fence-clearing work. Over the last
week, a flurry  of petitions and action alerts circulated over the internet,
and

by hand in Haiti, North  America  and France  have spurred hundreds of people
to tug their governments towards the side of  justice for Yvon Neptune. But
hundreds have not been enough -- thousands may be  needed, and time for Yvon
Neptune is running out.


Brian  Concannon Jr., Esq. directs the Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti  (IJDH), which has filed a Petition on behalf of Yvon Neptune before
the  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. More information about
Neptune's

 case, including resources for action are on _www.ijdh.org_
(http://www.ijdh.org) .


*****************
Marilyn  Mason
The  Creole Clearinghouse (TCC)
P.O.  Box 181015
Boston, MA 02118
Tel.:  617-247-8885
Email:  MariLinc@aol.com
Web:  http://hometown.aol.com/CreoleCH/Index6.html

Creole  LInks Page:
http://hometown.aol.com/MIT2Haiti/Index4.html

Marilyn's  Publications Page:
_http://hometown.aol.com/MariLinc/Index3.html_
(http://hometown.aol.com/MariLinc/Index3.html)

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