Haiti’s constitutional Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, 58, the country’s most prominent political prisoner, is gravely ill after 17 days of a hunger strike. Despite Haitian and international press reports that he had been transferred to the Dominican Republic or the U.S., he remains jailed in an “annex” of Haiti’s National Penitentiary in the Pacot neighborhood of the capital.

Over the weekend of April 30, several media outlets, including the Associated Press, ABC News and Radio Kiskeya in Haiti reported that Neptune had been transferred or was about to be transferred out of the country. Those reports, which were based on sources within the de facto Haitian government and a foreign embassy, were untrue.

Neptune was arrested last June 27 (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 22, No. 16, 6/30/2004) but has never appeared before a judge, as Haiti’s constitution requires within 48 hours. De facto authorities charge him with responsibility for an alleged massacre in St. Marc in February 2004.

He was taken to the examining magistrate in St. Marc on Apr. 22. But, unaware that he was coming, she was not in her chambers (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 7, 4/27/2005).

“It is the judge who was supposed to summon Neptune,” commented lawyer Brian Concannon, Jr. of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH). “The irony is that the de facto government always claims that the case is not in their hands but the judiciary’s. Neptune’s unrequested transfer disproves that claim.”

Neptune’s current hunger strike is his second to demand that he either be tried or released. His first three-week hunger strike ended when he was hospitalized for dehydration in a UN military hospital on March 10.

“The interim government is seeking to defuse criticism of its political prisoner policies by forcing Mr. Neptune to leave the country without going to court,” explained a May 2 IJDH update. “The Group for the Defense of the Rights of Political Prisoners (GDP), a Haitian human rights organization, reports that the government plans to wait until Mr. Neptune loses consciousness, then transport him out of the country.”

“Human rights groups, including the GDP and Amnesty International, world leaders like UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and religious leaders like Bishop Thomas Gumbleton and Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste have called for Mr. Neptune's release or trial,” the IJDH continues. “On Apr. 19, a team of lawyers from the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti and the Hastings Human Rights Project for Haiti filed a complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on Neptune's behalf.”

The IJDH also reports that Neptune refused to be flown to the Dominican Republic for treatment, despite de facto government pressure.

Groups like the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network (HLLN) and the Haiti Action Committee launched fax, email, and letter writing campaigns to the UN and US government. “Tell MINUSTAH, the Bush Administration, France and Canada that the blood, loss and suffering of Prime Minister Neptune and all of Haiti political prisoners are on their hands,” the HLLN appeal said.

“The de factos tried to take the offensive by accusing Neptune of a far-fetched crime,” said Berthony Dupont of the Haiti Support Network (HSN). “But, in the process, they revealed their own scheming, cruelty and disdain for law and due process.”

The IJDH has issued a sample letter to be sent to the ambassadors of the three principal coup-backing nations: the US, France and Canada. The text of that letter is as follows:

Dear Mr. Ambassador:

I am writing to urge you to act immediately to effect the release of political prisoner Yvon Neptune. As you know, Mr. Neptune has been held illegally without a hearing for over ten months, when Haiti's Constitution prohibits such detention for more than 48 hours. The Interim Government of Haiti's (IGH) claim that it is leaving the case up to a justice system that has so far done nothing but persecute him is meritless.

If Mr. Neptune dies, responsibility for his death will extend beyond the IGH to the international patrons that enabled this persecution, including your government. Your government helped install the IGH and has continued to provide financial and diplomatic support, despite the fact that human rights groups, the UN and many governments admit that Neptune's detention is illegal and/or constitutes political persecution.

Your country can avoid Mr. Neptune's death, and complicity in this death, by announcing that it will withhold all support from the IGH unless it complies with the Haitian Constitution and international human rights standards by immediately freeing Yvon Neptune. Please act now.

Sincerely, (name, address)

The letters can be sent to:

U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, James B. Foley
United States Embassy, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephones: (509) 223-4711, or 222-0200 or 0354
Fax: (509) 223-1641 or 9038
Email to Dana Banks, Human Rights Officer: BanksD@state.gov

Canadian Ambassador to Haiti, Claude Boucher
Embassy of Canada, Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephone: (509) 249-9000, Fax: (509) 249-9920
Email: prnce@international.gc.ca

Ambassador of France in Haiti, M. Yves Gaudeul
Embassy of France, 51 place des Héros de l'Indépendance - BP 312
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
Telephone: (509) 222-0952, Fax : (509) 223 5675

Letters of protest can also be sent to:

UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
PHONE: (509) 244-9650 or 9660, FAX: (509) 244-9366/67

Office of the UN General Secretary (New York)
Fax: 212.963.4879

Mahamane Cisse-Gouro,
Human Rights Adviser, UN in Haiti
Tel: (509) 403-4012 / 527-5274,
cisse-gouro@un.org.

Demonstrations Growing in Haiti’s Countryside

Parallel to the giant anti-coup and anti-occupation marches which have rocked Port-au-Prince in recent weeks, demonstrations are growing in size and frequency in Haiti’s provincial cities.

On April 15, over 700 people demonstrated in the town of Limbé, about 22 kilometers southwest of Cap Haïtien. Jointly organized by the Reflection Cell of the Lavalas Family Base and the National Popular Party (PPN), the lively demonstration drew hundreds of peasants from nearby areas like Marmelade, Grand Plaine and Port Margot.

“Lord, you see what George Bush, Jacques Chirac and Paul Martin have done to Haiti,” said Beev Chery of the Reflection Cell to the crowd. “We ask you Lord for the strength to resist under the boots of these foreign oppressors, to resist the Macoute police and henchmen.” The enforcers of the 29-year U.S.-backed Duvalier dictatorship (1957-86) were the Tonton Macoutes.

Demonstrators carried signs with slogans such as “Down with the occupation by foreign colonialists” and “OAS + UN = American lackeys.” There were also many posters calling for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s return and denouncing the “selection elections” planned by the de facto government for October and November.

“An organized and mobilized people can never lose,” declared Michel Adrien, a local PPN leader. “They said that Haiti would become paradise 48 hours after Aristide was gone. Is it true, my friends? Fourteen months after the February 29th kidnapping [of Aristide], we have systematic repression, corruption, inflation, robbery, rapes, summary executions, arbitrary arrests and incompetence.” Adrien called on the crowd “not to get an electoral card because you will become a marked card in the foreigners’ computers.” The de facto government is encouraging Haitians to obtain computerized electoral cards containing their photo, fingerprints and other personal information (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 22, No. 48, 2/9/2005).

In the southern town of Petit Goâve, students and townspeople demonstrated for three days straight to demand the removal of the de facto government and the withdrawal of occupation troops. The protests from April 18 to 20 came after troops of the United Nations Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) shot journalist Robenson Laraque of Radio Tele-Contact in the head on Mar. 20 as he watched their assault on the town’s police station, then occupied by former Haitian soldiers (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 23, No. 2, 3/23/2005). Laraque died in a Cuban hospital two weeks later.

The demonstrators, who numbered between dozens and hundreds over the three days, were angered by rumors that the de facto government only offered 125,000 gourdes ($7,400) for funeral expenses and compensation to the family and Tele-Contact. The marchers closed down several government offices, including the tax collection agency and the electric authority.

On April 19, Moroccan Colonel Elouafi Boulbars came with a MINUSTAH delegation to negotiate with the demonstrators and Laraque’s family. The next day, Yolette Mengual, the de facto Prime Minister’s spokeswoman, joined the negotiations.