The health of constitutional prime minister Yvon Neptune continues to deteriorate on day 28 of a hunger strike to demand that he be tried or freed. He has been illegally imprisoned since June 27, 2004 without ever going before a judge (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. Vol. 22, No. 16, 6/30/2004).

Congressman Kendrick Meek (D-FL) visited Neptune on May 16 in his prison cell in the jail next to Police headquarters in the Pacot neighborhood of the capital. Meek called de facto government claims over the weekend that Neptune was in good health “totally inaccurate.”

"I had to get on the floor [next to Neptune's bed] just to hear him speak," Meek said.

Meanwhile, in New York on May 11, Neptune’s daughter Maryvonne held a press conference at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). “We don’t know the condition of his organs,” she said. “I’m calling for action, for people to actively and openly put pressure on the people who are detaining him.”

South Africa’s African National Congress (ANC) also sounded an alarm over Neptune’s “grave condition” in its weekly Internet newsletter. “As an immediate step, the interim government must either formally charge or release Yvon Neptune and other political prisoners,” the newsletter said. The ANC also said that “urgent steps need to be taken to end the brutalization of Haiti's population and open the way for a meaningful national dialogue towards the restoration of the country's constitutional order.”

Neptune’s situation is perhaps best conveyed by himself, in a letter which was translated into English by Serge Bellegarde, Guy Antoine, and Marilyn Mason. Neptune wrote it just after he was dragged to St. Marc on April 22 for a no-show judge.

From the time I left the Prime Minister’s residence on March 12, 2004, up until June 27, 2004, the source of my insecurity had been the [de facto] Government itself. When the Government had me arrested on June 27, up until today, not only did this source of my insecurity increase and became more direct, but even worse, the Government deprived me of my freedom of movement, together with my freedom to speak freely, with all the length and breadth and depth that the Constitution allows for this right to be exercised.

The hunger strike I began on February 20 was aimed at forcing the Government to set me free and to stop being the cause of my insecurity.

Because of a promise the Government had made that it was going to liberate me, I accepted to put an end to my hunger strike and to go to the Argentine Hospital under the jurisdiction of the MINUSTAH/United Nations.

Even while in that hospital, however, my insecurity continued because of the Government’s continuing refusal to set me free.

That is why, while I was in the Hospital managed by the Argentinians/MINUSTAH, I continued to resist so that the United Nations would not send me to the trap of the supposed Villa in Pacot, but rather, that it would require instead that the Government free me and stop threatening my life. It was in the context of the dilatory tactics of this wicked Government that I was obliged to resume my hunger strike with even more force and why I am continuing it in the prison in Pacot, still with the aim of regaining my freedom and my security.

My friends, listen. On April 20, here is the information I had passed on: this plot aims at keeping me in prison by all means for as long as possible; that is one objective. The second objective is to take me, no matter what the conditions, to Saint-Marc to continue the political humiliation. Friends, listen: while I was already into the fifth day of my complete hunger strike, on Thursday afternoon, April 21, having given me guarantees that nothing would happen to me, the United Nations Forces took me, against my will, to a supposed Prison Villa in Pacot, close to the General Administration and Inspection Headquarters of the Police, despite the fact that I had explained to the UN Representative that this was a trap that the de facto Government had set up to implement the death plan it had for me. Above all, I told them that I would maintain my hunger strike in the supposed Prison Villa as long as I was not set free.

My friends, on Friday April 22, early in the morning, a team of 7 to 10 executioners I recognized from the prison system burst in on me to take me to Saint-Marc. I felt my life was in danger in the presence of these executioners; I told them I had not eaten, nor drunk anything in five days, and I asked them to leave me in peace because I was weak. When they picked me up with force, put me outside, and tried to handcuff me, I resisted for my life and I bit one of the many arms trying to force handcuffs on my wrists.

They drove me to Saint-Marc. I threw up all along the way. When we arrived in Saint-Marc, nothing was done. Supposedly, Mrs. Cluny Pierre Jules, the supposed Investigating Judge, declared that she was not coming because she had not been previously notified.

When the UN Representative received news of what the conditions were in Saint-Marc and of what kind of state I was in, he sent a helicopter to pick me up and take me back to Port-au-Prince, where I received some care in a UN ambulance which escorted me back to the supposed Prison Villa in Pacot.

I am continuing my hunger strike, so that I can regain my freedom and my security and so that the de facto Government will stop threatening my life, while it continues to trample on my dignity.

Yvon Neptune
Former Prime Minister
Member of Fanmi Lavalas
Political Prisoner
At the Prison in Pacot, Port-au-Prince

by Kevin Pina

TO: Human Rights Watch (HRW)
RE: Letter to the U.N. Security Council on the Renewal of the Mandate of the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH)
DATE: May 17, 2005

Dear Human Rights Watch,

In your recent letter to the U.N. Security Council dated May 16, 2005 you stated, "During a recent mission to Haiti, Human Rights Watch documented daily acts of violence in Port-au-Prince. We found that much of the violence is perpetrated by armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Despite security operations recently carried out jointly by MINUSTAH and the Haitian National Police (HNP), neighborhoods such as Cite Soleil remain paralyzed by violence."

You then follow this statement several paragraphs down with: "Given Haiti’s upcoming elections, we encourage you to ensure that MINUSTAH has all necessary resources for establishing a stable and secure environment for the electoral process. In addition to the mission’s efforts to support the process of national dialogue and to address logistical and administrative problems, it should also take concrete steps to ensure the safety of all participants in the electoral campaign. Specifically, we encourage you to enhance MINUSTAH’s capacity to provide security for protests and public marches. MINUSTAH should also undertake to ensure that the police do not use lethal force unnecessarily against demonstrators, as occurred during the February and March 2005 demonstrations in Cite Soleil. To this end, we encourage you to consider deploying additional Formed Police Units to assist and train the HNP in crowd-control techniques compatible with international human rights standards."

These two statements are clearly contradictory. The first blames violence on "armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide" and follows with praise for the MINUSTAH’s and HNP’s "security operations.”

Later you make a weak criticism of the HNP for massacres they have committed during peaceful demonstrations but avoid calling for a public investigation to make the police accountable for these very same killings. With one-hand you praise the Haitian police for raids into the capital’s poor neighborhoods with the U.N. (where there is also evidence of human rights violations) and with the other hand you acknowledge abuses by the police during peaceful demonstrations without holding them accountable.

As an independent journalist living in Haiti, who puts his camera between the Haitian police and demonstrators to cover this story, I am deeply disappointed with your letter because it falls short of demanding the Haitian police be investigated for documented cases of human rights abuses and extra-judicial killings. Not only does this place journalists like myself in greater danger, but I wonder how I will explain your position to the families of the victims slaughtered by the Haitian police who are merely asking for justice and accountability? Do I tell them that Human Rights Watch agrees with the Haitian police that their loved ones were expendable because they were suspected of being members of "armed gangs claiming affiliation with former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide?" (It is well-documented that they were shot in cold-blood during a peaceful demonstration.) Do I tell them HRW agrees with the Haitian police tactic (captured on video) of planting guns on the corpses of unarmed demonstrators after they kill them? If you don’t believe me then trust you own eyes and visit: www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/5_8_5/5_8_5.html.

Look at the 35 images of HNP handiwork and know that this is what you are dismissing with your half-hearted and biased human rights work in Haiti.

For my part, I will publicly encourage my readers and listeners to discontinue responding to your fund-raising appeals. I will tell them that whenever they read HRW statements they should be suspicious and return any HRW fund-raising appeals marked: "What about your position on Haiti? Hold the Haitian police accountable!" I will continue to do this until HRW stops dismissing victims of the Haitian police as "collateral damage" and begins to demand a public investigation into the HNP’s human rights abuses.

Sincerely,

Kevin Pina
Editor, Haiti Information Project
Associate Editor, Black Commentator
Haiti Special Correspondent, Flashpoints Radio on Pacifica
Frequent guest commentator on Haiti for several local, national and international radio programs.