Bernstein interview with Kevin Pina, Ira Kurzban and Rep. Maxine Waters
Bernstein: Evidence continues to mount of the United Nations complicity in the ongoing campaign by the U.S. installed government of Gerard Latortue to terrorize, exile, or kill supporters of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s popular Lavalas party. Despite detailed documentation of a series of massacres committed by Haiti’s masked national police over the last five months, the UN has insisted in a recent report that the general security evironment across Haiti has improved. This statement is false at its core. Indeed, the recent attack against unarmed demonstrators demanding Aristide’s return on February 28th, destroyed the credibility of several such claims made recently by the United Nations in Haiti, and exposed its duplicitous role in propping up and arming this murderous and illegal regime. Of greatest urgency now are cases having to do with Yvon Neptune and Minister of Interior Jocelerme Privert. Both are currently in the midst of two-week old hunger-strikes at Haiti’s National Penitentiary.
Bernstein: Joining us on the telephone is Ira Kurzban; he has worked as an attorney for the Aristide government and is a friend of Aristide. Kurzban went on the delegation along with Maxine Waters yesterday but was held at the airport in Port au Prince, and prevented from entering the country. In the studio with us is Flashpoints Special Correspondent Kevin Pina. Ira Kurzban, why don’t you talk about the urgency and the reason for the delegation that you were a part of yesterday even though you were prevented from actually leaving the airport in Port au Prince.
Kurzban: The purpose of the delegation was to visit Prime Minister Neptune and Minister of the Interior Privert, and some other political prisoners, and the goal was to see what the condition was, to try and find out what they wanted to do to try and get them out of the prison. There are really no charges against any of them ; these are classic cases of people who are political prisoners, to the extent that any of the charges that exist, none of those charges have been found to have been credible by anyone and they’ve just been used as an excuse to keep high-ranking members of Lavalas, and others who are Lavalas supporters, in jail. We have estimated that now there are probably over seven or eight hundred – at a minimum – political prisoners in Haiti. A far larger number than Haiti has ever seen really, since the Duvalier days.
Bernstein: Now you went down with the delegation; you have very close connections with the Aristide government, and the President Aristide, in exile. Why did they keep you from getting off of the plane, into the country?
Kurzban: Well first of all, I was the attorney for the Government of Haiti for 13 years, not only for President Aristide but for President Preval, and represented all of the Government Ministries during that whole period, Also, I thought it was quite bizarre in a way, that they did this. I think, clearly, when you have an illegitimate government that doesn’t respect the law and doesn’t follow the law, as we’ve seen repeatedly in what they’ve done to political prisoners, what they’ve done in shutting down press that opposes their point of views, executing journalists, and so forth, that you have this kind of result. I was informed directly by U.S. embassy personnel that this was an order from Latortue himself.
I have to tell you that I’ve been involved with Haitian refugees for years, and it had the flavour and was very much like it was during the Duvalier era. In other words, when Papa Doc would say something or when Jean-Claude would say something, that would be the word and the law in Haiti, and apparently the situation now is very similar to that. That is, you have a government that wasn’t elected, it’s an illegitimate government playing by whatever rules they make up on the spot. And so my reaction to this was that it demonstrates how weak this government is, how authoritarian it is, and how illegitimate it is.
Bernstein: Ira Kurzban, let’s just talk a little bit about the situation that is now facing Yvon Neptune and the Interior Minister; they are both on a hunger strike. Could you explain as best you can why they have chosen to risk their lives with this kind of hunger strike?
Kurzban: They believe that both of them have been targeted to be executed and certainly there have been credible reports coming out of Haiti that the recent [February 19] jailbreak was in part designed simply to get them out of jail so somebody could execute them. And in fact that someone has come forward and said that on orders of people from the government that that’s what he was supposed to do. So I think recognizing that, first of all, they are political prisoners, secondly that whatever charges have been made are completely phoney charges, you know, like we might have seen in the old totalitarian-style governments, and third, that in this situation, there is really no opportunity for the law to be followed.
That they have chosen in a very dramatic way to say we are going to go on a hunger strike until this government follows the law, until they are released, until they are exonerated of the charges, because these are phoney charges that everyone knows are phoney charges in Haiti. I think that this is a way of bringing to the forefront the lawlessness of the current government and their demand that the law be followed, which includes their release in a legal way, and the dismissal of all charges in a legal way. Based on the reports that I was told from the other people who went [on the delegation], Yvon Neptune is very, very weak, may lapse into unconsciousness very soon, and is determined not to leave the prison until the law is respected and he is exonerated.
Bernstein: Also in the studio with me is Kevin Pina, our Special Correspondent for Haiti.
Pina: Ira, how are you? Good afternoon. I wanted to ask you a question because it keeps coming up again and again, and that’s the question of purported corruption by Aristide and his government in the past that somehow justified the February 29th coup. Could you speak to the issue of corruption?
Kurzban: There’s no question in my mind, and I was very close to the government, and was there on a regular basis, that the President was certainly not involved in any corruption. Was there corruption in Haiti? I’m sure there was corruption at certain levels among certain people, but I know for a fact that the President couldn’t have been involved in corruption because he was never involved in any of the financial matters. Whenever financial matters came up they were referred to other Ministers and to different Ministries within the government. And, you know, this was a disinformation campaign, and it was a very complex strategy I think, Kevin, as you know, that goes back over a very long period of time. The disinformation campaign against President Aristide did not start in February 2004; it started in December of 1990 when President Aristide was first elected.
Bernstein: Let me jump in here for a moment, because we just managed to contact Congresswoman Maxine Waters and I’d like to bring her into the conversation. ..We’re just talking about the actual situation regarding the health of the Prime Minister Neptune, and the Interior Minister Privert. You met with the Prime Minister yesterday; could you please give us a report on what you learned, what you understand, what you saw about his health?
Waters: Yes, I certainly will. I did meet with him for almost an hour…He was half-lying, half-sitting on the bed in his prison cell; he was very thin, he spoke just barely above a whisper. I had to lean toward him in order to make sure I could hear what he was saying. He said he felt o.k but he didn’t look o.k, and he appeared to tire out as we were talking. I felt bad, I told him to go ahead and recline, so that we would not keep sapping his energy, to give up the fast so he could seek asylum. He said that if was going to die he wanted, to die before the world so that they could bring attention to what they are doing down there. He is a political prisoner, he’s committed no crime, there is no justice system in Haiti, and he’s committed to the fast. Just as they were uncompromising on trying to work with President Aristide and they insisted and worked and orchestrated a coup d’etat, he would be uncompromising on the fast and his desire to fight this puppet government and those who would destroy Haiti. You know, he was very firm in his commitment to try and bring about attention to get justice to Haiti.
Bernstein: And would you say that at this point this is a life-threatening situation?
Waters: I do. It’s been sixteen days, and this can’t go on; I do think it’s life-threateing.
Bernstein: Let me ask you this: Can you help our listeners understand why the duly constituted Prime Minister of a country with an elected President is now in prison and being held there by a government installed by the United States? Help us understand what is happening here.
Waters: Well you must understand that it is everything that you are describing; it’s basically illegal, unjust, and it doesn’t make good sense. What you have is an interim puppet government and some forces in Haiti coming from the so-called business elite class, whatever, who are trying to get rid of all of the leadership of Lavalas. They are trying to either kill them off, jail them. They want them out of the way so they can orchestrate this fake election and call it a free and fair election, and get their people in and take over the absolute rule of Haiti, ruling Haiti. So they know what they are doing. It’s about getting rid of Privert and Neptune and all the people who were in the leadership of Lavalas, worked with or were part of the Aristide government and could be re-elected again in fair elections; they will have none of that.
[…]
Pina: Congresswoman I understand that your movement and security was provided by and guided by the U.S. embassy. I also understand that you were not given the time to actually visit Annette Auguste, So Anne, who of course is among the other high-profile political prisoners being held…
Waters: That is absolutely right, the security was provided by the State Department. We did not go see So Anne. The situation in Haiti is rather dangerous. Getting from the airport to the prison was quite a chore, the traffic was just unbelievably bad, and we were in congested areas where we were not able to move sometimes for minutes, and I was worried about the safety, not only of myself, but the other six people who were with us, all friends of Haiti, including Neptune’s lawyer Mario (Joseph) was with us, and Father Jean Juste was with us and so I was concerned about being stuck like that. What I decided to do was to go to the prison, not try and go see So Anne, but rather come back and tell my colleagues about what’s going on and trying to organize a huge delegation of members of Congress and others to go back, and today already I’ve talked with Charlie Rangel and with Donald Payne, and with a few other members, and we all agree that we should get as many members as possible, get clergy, friends of Haiti, and go back down with a huge delegation, and we started to plan that tonight and I think that we will be able to see So Anne because we’ll spend more than a day down there.
I was only on the ground, from the time we landed, I took the 7[indistinct] flight out of Miami…We got to Haiti, we spent a few minutes on the ground as they blocked my friend, attorney Ira Kurzban, from coming into Haiti. Again, they treated him as they treat anybody who was close to or deeply involved with Aristide. They try and cut them off from having a platform or forum to talk about what is going on. So we did not get a chance to see So Anne; it was not because we were denied the opportunity to see her. It was just not possible to get it done and get back on the last plane that goes out rather early there. So that’s why we’re planning and orchestrating another delegation.
Bernstein: Final question….There was a statement of concern released by the Fanmi Lavalas party that is so strong and widespread in Haiti, that brought the democracy of Aristide into being. Their concern was that there was really an attempt to kill Neptune, that this former military guy, Arnel Bellizaire, this is all over the radio in Haiti, that actually this was a prison break that took place I guess about two weeks ago now. That it was not only an operation to get drug dealers free, but it was going to be used by this former soldier to kill Prime Minister Neptune. What do we know about this plot? Was it funded from the Latortue government? Was it real?
Waters: I don’t know except Prime Minister Neptune told me that he knew he was marked for death and he knew that they intended to kill him, and that he was not going to play their game, and he made the right decision, I think, by making sure he was brought back into that prison, because it would be too easy to say that he had escaped and somebody had killed him in trying to apprehend him. So something is going on there.
Bernstein: Ira Kurzban, do you believe that the attempt, or the potential attempt to kill the Prime Minister is part of an overall plan to purge the pro-democracy movement, the very strong support for Aristide, in time for a phoney election?
Kurzban: I think there’s no question that the whole coup was really directed toward, first, cut off the head of Lavalas, which was President Aristide. That’s why the U.S. doesn’t even want Aristide in the Western Hemisphere. Secondly going after the other leadership of Lavalas, either by forcing them into exile, executing them or putting them into prison as political prisoners, and killing the base by literally going into places like Cite Soleil and La Saline, and allowing the police to go in with the UN behind them and just execute people, engage [in] summary execution, in violation of every known international norm and clearly in violation of the Haitian constitution. So this is a plan that’s designed to attempt to eradicate Lavalas before any elections.
And it’s obvious that the U.S., Canadian and French plan here is to have an election among the ten percent of the elite and part of the intellectual elite of the country and to elect somebody who clearly doesn’t represent the majority of the people, and to call it an election. I think as Congresswoman Waters said, this is clearly going to be a phoney election. Lavalas can’t participate. We saw the one day in the last year when Lavalas was given the opportunity, by having UN protection, to go out and demonstrate, and in one day we saw almost 10,000 people come out on the streets of Port au Prince. If the UN really protected the members of Lavalas, within the next [indistinct] there would be 100,000 people on the streets.
Bernstein: […] Representative Waters, it seems very troubling that the UN is on the wrong side of this too often with defending the killers.
Waters: Well the fact of the matter is that the security forces that they have down there are just not involved in the right way. They don’t have the right leadership, they know nothing about the culture, none of them speak Creole, I mean it’s just crazy. And we can’t depend on them, as far as I’m concerned, with the Brazilians down there it’s a political move so that Lula can orchestrate getting on the UN Security Council and he’s showing the United States he’ll do their dirty work for them. Right now, it’s a mess…
Bernstein: You’re saying that the UN here really is pushing the envelope for the United States and [are] involved in some pretty dirty business…
Waters: The United States is responsible for this destabilization of Haiti. We have a responsibility to try and stabilize Haiti and we certainly have a responsibility to stop them from killing folks and from throwing people in jail and having a whole host of political prisoners languishing in that terrible, deplorable place down there.
Bernstein: Rep. Waters, thanks you for going down there and finding out for us what’s going on, we’ll be in touch. Ira Kurzban, thank you for being with us; Kevin Pina, as always, our great appreciation.
ZNetwork is funded solely through the generosity of its readers.
Donate