HAITI: Former PM on hunger strike

May 4, 2005

A little more than a year after US Marines kidnapped democratically
elected Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and installed
opponent Gerard Latortue as an "interim" prime minister, the world's
fourth poorest country remains in chaos. Although Aristide's Lavalas
Movement is the most popular political party, the government remains
in power through the force of the Haitian police force, backed by
United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) forces.

The Haitian police have been widely condemned for human rights
abuses. Amnesty International has documented numerous arbitrary
arrests and summary executions of Lavalas members. On April 29,
Haitian police shot dead nine protesters at a march demanding the
return of Aristide.

Adding to police violence are the terrorisation tactics of the former
Haitian Army -- CIA-trained thugs whose invasion provided cover for
the coup against Aristide. These "soldiers" have been responsible for
rape and murder rampages through the slum areas that constitute
Aristide's support base, with neither the police nor MINUSTAH troops
able or willing to stop it.

Meanwhile, disease and starvation stalk the country?s population and
a US$1 billion aid package promised after the coup by Western
countries has failed to materialise.

Aristide has refused to accept the legitimacy of the interim
government, and it is unclear whether Lavalas will agree to
participate in elections scheduled for later this year, given the
extremely violent political climate.

Four months after his installation, Latortue had Yvon Neptune, the
prime minister under Aristide, arrested and charged with murder. On
February 11, 2004, Neptune fought and defeated an armed gang-led
uprising near the village of Saint-Marc. While Aristide's opponents
claim 50 people were killed by those under Neptune's command, the UN
independent expert on human Rights in Haiti concluded "there was no
massacre." However, Latortue has pushed for his prosecution.

In mid-February, Neptune commenced a hunger strike, which continued
until he was taken to a United Nations-run hospital on March 20. On
April 17, however, he recommenced the hunger strike. By April 29,
members of the Committee to Protect the Human rights of the Haitian
People reported that he was "closer to death than to life." He wrote
this letter to his supporters on April 20. (Translation by Serge
Bellegarde, Guy Antoine and Marilyn Mason.)

From the time I left the prime minister's residence on March 12, 2004
... the source of my insecurity had been the government ... 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 agreed 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 require 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.

My friends, listen. 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 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 this supposed prison villa as long as I
was not set free.

My friends, on April 22, early in the morning, a team of seven to 10
executioners I recognised 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 the Lavalas Movement

Political prisoner

At the Prison in Pacot, Port-au-Prince