In 2000, many Haitians voted for President Jean Bertrand Aristide and his Lavalas Family party (FL) thinking that these politicians would defend Haiti's workers and peasants against the violence and greed of big landowners and capitalists. Instead, this week, Aristide's government has sanctioned the brutal smashing of a peasant demonstration, the lynching of two demonstrators, and the imprisonment without charges or medical attention of two journalists and ten demonstrators, most of whom were badly beaten by a big landowner's armed goons.

On Monday, May 27, peasants and workers in the northern town of St. Raphael tried to organize a march to reclaim land from which they had been expelled by the family of Jacques Novella, a big landowner and merchant from Cap Haïtien who owns an orange and lemon tree plantation called Guacimal S.A.. The workers organization Batay Ouvriyè (Workers Struggle) (BO) sent delegations in two pick-up trucks from Cap Haïtien and St. Michel d'Attalaye to march in solidarity with the peasants, who are unionized. But the demonstration was cut short when thugs attacked and dispersed the marchers (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 20, No. 11, May 29, 2002).

In the confrontation, two local officials -- a CASEC and an ASEC (communal section administrators) -- were wounded, either by rocks or bullets, one in the eye, one in the head. Rumors that one died in a Cap Haïtien hospital were unfounded. Meanwhile, the landowner's thugs killed with machetes and buried an elderly peasant couple who had with BO's St. Michel delegation.

In the following days, the home of Sintes Estimé, the Guacimal Union's General Secretary, was burned to the ground, according to Batay Ouvriyè. He and his family have been forced into hiding.

Police arrived on the scene as the skirmish was ending and arrested 10 demonstrators and two journalists, Darwin St. Julien of Haïti Progrès newspaper and Allan Deshommes of Radio Atlantik, based in the northern town of Quartier Morin.

On May 28, the police took the journalists to see a doctor. St. Julien had been struck with a machete in the eye. The doctor said that he was in danger of losing the eye and recommended that the journalist immediately see an eye specialist, a Cuban doctor stationed in the area. Meanwhile, Deshommes periodically loses consciousness, and the doctor prescribed that he urgently see a head specialist.

On May 29, a prosecutor and investigating judge from Grande Rivière travelled to St. Raphael to investigate the arrests. But at 8:30 a.m., a police helicopter from Port-au-Prince arrived to take the prisoners. The Grande Rivière judges refused to turn them over, explaining that the prisoners needed medical attention and belonged to their jurisdiction. Angered, the seven heavily-armed black-clad policemen flew back to Cap Haïtien.

The judges then travelled with the prisoners and two other judges to Grande Rivière to undertake a judicial review and decide whether to charge the detainees, as is required by law within 48 hours after arrest. But before the process got far, the helicopter landed in Grande Rivière with the policemen aboard brandishing a letter from the Northern Departmental Police Chief, Fritz Jean, demanding that the prisoners be turned over.

Although the departmental police chief has no authority to overrule the judges (the police are auxiliaries of the justice system), the prisoners were turned over to the agitated and aggressive cops aboard the helicopter, which then flew back to Port-au-Prince. The two journalists and eight of the demonstrators were then placed in the National Penitentiary, which is only supposed to house convicted criminals. Two female demonstrators were sent to the women's prison at Fort National. At press time, nine days after their arrest, none of them had been charged or received necessary medical attention. Haïti Progrès was repeatedly denied access to the prisoners and even to its own reporter.

The crackdown on the Guacimal workers by St. Raphael officials is no surprise. Fernand Sévère, an FL member, was the town's mayor until he was fatally riddled with 18 bullets in an inter-FL power struggle last December. His brother, Adonija Sévère, succeeded him in the post.

Last year, Novella paid about $14,000 US to Fernand Sévère to sabotage the Guacimal peasant's union and their demands, according to Levainceur Sévère, who is the deceased's cousin and a prominent journalist and community activist in Miami. 'For this money, Fernand used to arrest the Guacimal peasant organizers and put them in jail,', Levainceur Sévère, born and raised in St. Raphael, explained. 'Now his brother and successor, my cousin Adonija, is taking the same approach, only worse. He has gone even further. According to my information, Adonija and his agents have even killed peasants. I don't know if he has been paid money by Novella or if he just wants to be paid money like his brother was, but he is out to crush the Guacimal peasant movement in the same way. And the central government supports his version of events. We can say that the central government and Adonija Sévère are one and the same.'

Indeed, after Adonija Sévère characterized the peasants, solidarity unionists, and journalists as 'terrorists,' Mario Dupuy, State Secretary of Communication, declared that people in BO's two pick-ups had 'heavy weapons, military weapons' and that 'these two pick-ups came with these people, they landed in the area to chase the peasants, we don't know for what reason.' He justified the journalists' arrests by arguing that 'they came [from Cap Haïtien] in the same car as the assailants, which was loaded with guns, which came to carry out an operation in St. Rafael.'

Guy Delva of the Association of Haitian Journalist (AJH), who led a delegation to St. Raphael on to investigate the matter, ridiculed the government's assertions. 'When we got there, the police couldn't even tell us why they had arrested these guys,' he said. 'They told us that the journalists were there while people were violating the law, were protesting, demonstrating without authorization. But they couldn't tell us what the journalists had done other than cover a public event. This is extremely grave, arbitrary, totalitarian, I don't even know what word to use to characterize this act.' Delva and the AJH denounced the arrests before the Interamerican Commission for Human Rights and has threatened a press boycott of judicial and even governmental affairs if the journalists are not released.

AJH's lawyers have also denounced the shell-game being played by Haiti's justice system. Authorities in Port-au-Prince say they have not charged the prisoners and will not allow visitors to see them because the case is in the hands of authorities in the North. But Northern authorities disavow any responsibility for holding the prisoners.

Amnesty International has also lambasted the attacks on the peasant unionists and journalists, calling for an investigation. 'Once again, the rhetoric of 'terrorism' is being used to violate basic human rights, including the right to be notified of charges and to have access to medical care in detention,', Amnesty International said. ' This is not acceptable.'

Other groups denouncing the crackdown include the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, the Haitian Press Federation (FHP), the Lawyers Committee for the Respect of Individual Liberties, the Louverturian Movement for the Liberation of Haiti, the National Coalition for Haitian Rights, and the Ecumenical Center for Human Rights.

On Jun. 6, AJH, FHP, Northern Journalists Solidarity, and Inter-Face 'Koze Lakay', plan a demonstration in front of government offices in Cap Haïtien to demand the release of the journalists.

In a Jun. 3 press conference in Port-au-Prince, Evariste Wilson of the National Popular Party (PPN) pointed out that the police have not produced any evidence of the alleged weapons, even though a state television (TNH) crew arrived in St. Raphael on May 28. 'Why hasn't TNH shown the weapons as they always do in these cases?' Wilson asked. 'How did these people come armed all the way from Cap Haïtien? If the government had this information beforehand, as they claim, why didn't they arrest these people and prevent the confrontation?... It seems to us that the government is embarrassed by this case and they don't yet know what to do because they have not yet had a chance to fabricate 'evidence.'

He denounced the emerging 'facade democracy, a democracy which rests on words and on the same old methods as the former Macoute regime.' Wilson called for the immediate release of not only the two journalists but all the Batay Ouvriyè demonstrators who languish uncharged and untreated in the capital's squalid prisons. 'The persecution of the Guacimal workers, whom the authorities want to paint as 'terrorists,' seems to reflect a new alliance of dark forces, both inside and outside of the country, which aims to destabilize and target Haiti's progressive forces,' Wilson said.