[News] Haiti's Yvon Neptune rushed to hospital in critical condition

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Haiti's Prime Minister Yvon Neptune rushed to hospital in critical condition

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HAC/3_11_5.html

Yvon Neptune, Haiti's prime minister under President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide, on a hunger strike since Feb. 20, has fallen into critical 
condition and was rushed to a hospital by U.N. soldiers Thursday evening, 
according to sources in Port-au-Prince. Neptune and Interior Minister 
Jocelerme Privert have been refusing food to protest their illegal 
detention as well as the imprisonment of hundreds of Aristide supporters 
who have not been charged with any crime.

Prime Minister Neptune was taken to the MINUSTAH hospital - run by the UN 
Argentinian soldiers - across the highway from the main airport. He was not 
forced to leave against his will, but was occasionally unconscious.

"It has been a crime for people to express their solidarity with President 
Aristide in Haiti since the coup d'Ètat against President Aristide Feb. 
29," said Pierre Labossiere, a founding member of the Haiti Action 
Committee. "It's a crime punishable by summary execution in thousands of 
cases. Those who aren't killed are put in jail just for expressing their 
support for Lavalas [Aristide's party], even wearing Aristide t-shirts in 
peaceful demonstrations. This is the situation that has kept Prime Minister 
Yvon Neptune, Minister of the Interior Jocelerme Privert, folk singer 
Annette Auguste (So Anne) jailed in miserable conditions.

"The prime minister and other political prisoners were facing the prospect 
of being killed in jail - several unsuccessful attempts against the prime 
minister's life had been reported. It was these intolerable conditions that 
brought the Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and the Minister of the Interior 
Jocelerme Privert to start a hunger strike. The Gérard Latortue government, 
in partnership with the U.N. and the governments of Canada, France and the 
United States, bear the ultimate responsibility for the human tragedy that 
has befallen Haiti since the kidnapping of the popular, 
democratically-elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Visited in his jail cell on Monday by Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Los Angeles, 
Neptune refused to quit the hunger strike, telling the congresswoman he 
would not break his fast until the unjust circumstances of his arrest were 
addressed.

In a press release after the visit, the congresswoman reported: "The 
conditions that I observed in the prison where Prime Minister Neptune is 
being held were deplorable. Prime Minister Neptune was weak and could only 
speak in a whispering voice. He insisted that he had been jailed without 
justification and that he had committed no crime. He has not been allowed 
to go before a judge to challenge his confinement as required under the 
constitution of Haiti, and he believes he has been targeted to be killed."

She continued: "I urge the interim government of Haiti to set Prime 
Minister Neptune free and release all political prisoners in Haitian 
prisons. The interim government's repression of dissenters like Prime 
Minister Neptune must end immediately. The whole world is watching."

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