[News] Haiti: Yvon Neptune statement

[News at freedomarchives.org]

AHP News - August 24,  2004 – English translation (Unofficial)



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Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune says he is a political prisoner of the 
current government which he accuses of wishing to destroy Fanmi Lavalas

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Port-au-Prince, August 24, 2004 (AHP)- Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune 
indicated Tuesday that he considers himself to be a political prisoner of 
the current government whose members and supporters were actors or 
accomplices in a modern coup d’Etat which put a constitutionally elected 
president on notice that he had to either resign or be killed.



In a document that has reached AHP,  Yvon Neptune communicated his decision 
not to collaborate with any hearing based on accusations of a political 
nature or with political implications or connotations and that is conducted 
in the spirit of political justice of the moment.



The former Prime Minister, who turned himself in to the police following 
accusations made by NCHR that he was involved in an alleged massacre at La 
Scierie, spoke out against the conduct of the interim government which has 
revealed itself to be actively and viscerally anti-Lavalas in its plans, 
its rhetoric and its practices.



The former Prime Minister in the government of President Aristide recalled 
that during more than three years of negotiations aimed at safeguarding the 
fundamental achievements of Haiti’s democracy and assuring progress in the 
process of change for which the Haitian Constitution is an essential 
building block, the adversaries of Fanmi Lavalas chose, he said, to reject 
every political compromise and decided to resort to armed violence to 
achieve their objective.
According to him, the adversaries of the former government wished to 
interrupt constitutional government at any price, ruin the process of the 
institutionalization of democracy, neutralize, sap, and infiltrate with the 
goal of eliminating Fanmi Lavalas, the majority political organization.



The current government, supported by its partners of all sorts, has 
committed itself to a campaign of systematic political denigration of the 
political organization, arrests of its leaders, members and supporters on 
the basis of simple fallacious allegations coming from political 
adversaries”, he charged.



He added that the enemies of Fanmi Lavalas also engaged in acts of physical 
and psychological aggression as well as implicit or explicit exclusion 
of  Fanmi Lavalas from all the affairs of the State.



According to Mr. Neptune, one of the most terrifying components of the 
plans for the killing of democracy by this self-proclaimed 
techno-democratic government is the fact that it cloaks itself in judicial 
garb in its attempt to camouflage the infernal machine launched tirelessly, 
he said,  against Fanmi Lavalas.



"The money from  truants, smugglers, traffickers and speculators of all 
sorts,  and the political interests of some affluent members of the 
government have constantly rigged the scales of justice”, asserted Yvon 
Neptune.



The former Prime Minister declared himself ready to contribute freely 
toward the interests of the Haitian people, who persevere, he said, in 
their quest for progress and peace, by continuing to devote themselves at 
great risk and sacrifice to the slow and painstaking process of re-founding 
Haiti on the basis of justice.



He denounced the de facto government which, in collusion with economic or 
political actors whose democratic credentials are at the very least 
dubious, has seized control of the judicial system, which has been in decay 
for a long time with the objective of bringing about the disappearance 
of   Fanmi Lavalas from the political landscape and guaranteeing the 
privileged interests for networks of wheeler dealers and political types to 
the detriment of the life and durable progress of the Haitian nation.



AHP August 24, 2004 12:15 PM


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