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

---