Imprisoned Without Charge: Yvon Neptune and Haiti’s Political Prisoners
Latortue and Justice Minister Gousse’s Inquisition
• On March 10, Yvon Neptune, the imprisoned prime minister under former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was
rushed to the hospital to be treated for dehydration. Neptune’s health has been deteriorating since he began a hunger
strike on February 19 to protest his seven months of detention without charge.
• Neptune’s hospitalization occurred as international pressure increases on Haiti’s controversial interim government to
release the former primer minister as well as hundreds of other former Aristide government officials and sympathizers
whose imprisonment—often without charge—constitutes a major human rights violation by the country’s disreputable Justice
Minister, Bernard Gousse.
• Concerns have been raised about Neptune’s safety in the overcrowded National Penitentiary after a February 19 attack
there freed more than 480 hundred prisoners and killed one guard. This was not the first deadly incident at the prison.
• Prison conditions in Haiti remain deplorable.
• During protests marking the first anniversary of the February 29, 2004, U.S.-scripted ousting of President Aristide,
at least two Aristide supporters were killed by police in an incident later denounced by the UN’s top representative in
Haiti. Three days later, when thousands of Haitians gathered to protest the killings, the UN peacekeeping force refused
to allow the police to observe the event, prompting Gousse to outrageously accuse the UN of violating its mandate.
Around 10 PM on March 10, nearly three weeks after beginning a hunger strike to protest his imprisonment, Yvon Neptune,
Haiti’s prime minister under former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was hospitalized after suffering dehydration.
Soldiers from MINUSTAH, the UN’s 7,400 strong peacekeeping force in Haiti, took Neptune to a UN military hospital for
medical treatment. In recent days, international media reports have noted the declining health of the former prime
minister and Haiti’s interim government—specifically interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and Justice Minister Bernard
Gousse—must be held accountable for his well-being.
Political Prisoners
On March 9, Senators Christopher Dodd (D-CT), Tom Harkin (D-IO), James Jeffords (I-VT) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT) sent a
letter to interim Prime Minister Latortue, in which they wrote, "If no charges have been brought against Mr. Neptune, we
demand that he be immediately released." That same day, a UN Security Council press statement on Haiti was issued,
emphasizing Neptune’s imprisonment and calling on the government to “expedite all pending cases and to ensure due
process for all citizens.” The senators’ letter and the Security Council statement follow on the heels of Representative
Maxine Waters’ (D-CA) March 7 trip to Haiti, during which she met with Neptune and fellow inmates Jocelerme Privert,
Aristide’s former minister of the interior, and Jacques Mathelier, a former legislative delegate. Unhesitatingly calling
the men political prisoners, she issued a press release demanding that, “The interim government’s repression of
dissenters like Prime Minister Neptune must end immediately. The whole world is watching.” Arrested June 27, 2004,
Neptune, along with Privert, is accused, but not yet charged, with killings that occurred in Saint Marc during the 2004
revolt against Aristide. Most independent observers have concluded that the accusations are without foundation.
Neptune and Privert undertook a hunger strike after a February 19 jailbreak temporarily freed them—both high profile
inmates were taken to safety during the attack but soon turned themselves in to UN peacekeepers; a UN spokesman, Damien
Onses-Cardona, told the AP that, "They insisted on returning to make clear they didn't try to escape"—to protest the
fact that they have been imprisoned for months without charge, and some had begun to fear for their health and lives.
After meeting with Neptune, Congresswoman Waters described his condition as “very bad” and added that “he is in a
weakened position and I do not believe that he can continue this fast without causing his death.” Although every day of
his hunger strike jeopardized his health, Neptune had vowed to continue fasting until his release.
Neptune is perhaps the most well-known of the numerous pro-Aristide government officials and others who have been
detained by the Latortue regime. The interim government even imprisoned Father Gerard Jean-Juste, the country’s most
revered Catholic priest. After a judge found that no evidence existed to hold him on charges of instigating violent
pro-Aristide protests, Jean-Juste was released late last November, after nearly seven weeks in prison. Still, many
prominent Haitian leaders continue to be imprisoned with absolutely no charges filed against them. In a January 2
article by the Reed Lindsay that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Regis Charron, the author of a November 2004
UN Development Program report on Haiti’s National Penitentiary, said “only 17 of the some 1,100 prisoners at the
national penitentiary -- about 1.5 percent -- have been convicted of a crime, and many detainees have not yet seen a
judge.”
Haiti’s Notorious Prison
Neptune, Privert, Mathelier and many other political prisoners are being held in Haiti’s largest prison, under horrific
conditions. The extremely overcrowded National Penitentiary was, according to CNN, designed to hold six hundred inmates
but exceeded one thousand before more than 480 escaped last month when gunmen attacked it, killing one guard. A December
1, 2004 riot at the notorious facility reportedly killed ten, but numerous witnesses said police and prison guards
executed inmates, certainly resulting in many more deaths. Reportedly, jailed Aristide supporters often are housed with
some of the same rebels who ousted Aristide, creating a volatile environment. According to a December 1, 2004 Miami
Herald article by Jacqueline Charles, Jean-Juste, who during roughly seven weeks in prison was transferred to five
jails, “shared his first jail cell with 20 prisoners -- no toilet, no water. The last one he shared with Harold Severe,
the pro-Aristide former assistant mayor of Port-au-Prince. His neighbors there included Louis-Jodel Chamblain, an
accused murderer and one of the leaders of the armed rebellion that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29.” Additionally, the
article noted that the Reverend was forced to suffer indignities, such as having to wear the same shirt throughout his
entire imprisonment. During her visit with Neptune, Congresswoman Waters called the prison conditions “deplorable” and
said the former prime minister told her that he “believes he has been targeted to be killed.”
A 2002 study by the U.S. INS Resource Information Center described conditions in Haiti’s prison and detention centers as
“extremely poor, and do not meet either national or international standards fixed by law.” The report also cited
instances “in which prison authorities allegedly punished prisoners for complaining about poor treatment,” including one
case on November 15, 2001, when “a riot erupted in the National Penitentiary after a prison guard beat to death a
prisoner who complained about the conditions.” There is no reason to believe that prisons have improved under the
Latortue regime, though there is ample evidence that they have worsened. A summer 2004 report by the Haiti Accompaniment
Project found that, “All reports indicate that the patterns we observed – illegal arrest, prolonged detention without
trial – continue and in fact are worse.” The report added, “It is not encouraging to learn that the U.S. State
Department initially selected a U.S. prison consultant, Terry Stewart, to oversee reform of Haiti’s prisons. Mr.
Stewart’s previous position was consultant to Abu Ghraib. During the time he served as director of Arizona’s prison
system (1995-2002), the U.S. Justice Department brought a suit charging male prison guards with rape, sodomy and assault
against fourteen female inmates.” Haiti’s and the region’s prison and judicial systems are clearly in need of a serious
overhaul as a wave of prison riots have spread across Latin America and the Caribbean in the last few years—one of the
deadliest occurred March 7 when battling inmates in a Dominican Republic prison started a fire that killed at least 136
prisoners. The possibility of an even greater tragedy at the National Penitentiary or another other Haitian detention
center should be a major cause for worry.
Protests Turn Deadly
To mark the first anniversary of the U.S.-supported ouster of Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president,
some 2,000 pro-Aristide protestors marched through the Port-au-Prince slum of Bel Air on February 28. These “peaceful”
protests turned deadly when police, without provocation, opened fire on the demonstrators, killing at least two.
MINUSTAH spokesman Cmdr. Carlos Chagas Braga told the AP that “This looked to be peaceful but for some reason, we are
not sure why, the Haitian police arrived and decided to disband the demonstration." While police have denied shooting at
the protestors, this was not the first instance of police attacking unarmed demonstrators and is unlikely to be the
last. Even the State Department’s recently-released 2004 report on Haiti’s human rights practices underlined such
alarming occurrences: “Police officers used excessive—and sometimes deadly—force in making arrests or controlling
demonstrations and rarely were punished for such acts.”
The flagrant nature and appalling regularity of killings by Haiti’s security and paramilitary forces seems to have
finally caught the attention of MINUSTAH, which distressingly often seemed incapable of restoring law and order to a
nation still dominated by armed gangs and renegade ex-soldiers following Aristide’s forced exile. In a March 2 interview
with the Miami Herald, Valdés appeared determined to prevent any repeat of the fatal protest. ``We can't tolerate
shooting out of control. We will not permit human rights abuses,'' he told reporter Joe Mozingo.The Herald article also
mentions that Latortue’s government is “trying to rebuild the [police] force, but corruption is an overwhelming
temptation amid Haiti's deep-seated poverty. Officers have been implicated in drug trafficking, kidnappings, murders and
one major prison break.” While Valdés said that MINUSTAH is reevaluating its mandate—which currently says it must
support the police—it also should be much more diligent in the “vetting and certification of [the Haitian police]
personnel,” which is also called for in the mandate. Indeed, in their March 9 release, UN Security Council members
“expressed concern about the human rights situation, including allegations of human rights abuses attributed to the
Haitian National Police (HNP) officers, which have not yet been properly investigated by the authorities.” Such a
finding is extremely troubling considering that one of the three sections of MINUSTAH’s mandate is dedicated solely to
monitoring and protecting human rights. Further straining its relations with the Latortue government, and ultimately
MINUSTAH’s ability to perform its job as a peacekeeping force, are allegations of rape; in February, the UN began
investigating a woman’s claims that she was attacked by three Pakistani peacekeepers.
To MINUSTAH’s credit, it did step in to protect the nearly 2,500 demonstrators who on March 4 gathered again in Bel Air
to denounce police shooting of unarmed protestors four days earlier. In an effort to prevent further violence, UN
peacekeepers kept the police away from the marchers. But in a telling sign of his utter disregard for human
rights—especially the rights of Aristide supporters—Justice Minister Gousse immediately denounced MINUSTAH, alleging
that it had violated its mandate, even though the UN insisted that prior to the protests logistics were worked out with
police. With hundreds of people killed during clashes between protestors and police in the last few months—reports
indicate more than 400, including 34 police officers, since last September’s violence occurred—Gousse’s heated
reluctance to allow the UN force to monitor the protests alone is irresponsible and likely to have deadly consequences.
In his March 5 radio address, President George Bush said that, “Freedom is the birthright and deep desire of every human
soul.” Yvon Neptune and his fellow political prisoners, held under deplorable conditions for months without charge,
certainly would agree. If they had heard the Bush address in their fetid and crowded cells, the question is whether they
could appreciate the bitter irony of Bush’s words: the fact that the statement comes from the man whose administration
orchestrated the ousting of their democratically elected president and rushed in an obscure Boca Raton retiree to head a
morally bankrupt regime that has arrested and jailed people just for their political beliefs.
This analysis was prepared by David R. Kolker, COHA Research Fellow.