<html>
<body>
<font size=3><br>
Date: Sun, 30 Oct 2005 18:42:06 -0800 <br>
From: Sasha B. Kramer
<a href="mailto:sash@stanford.edu"><sash@stanford.edu></a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
This article about Father Jean Juste came out last week in the Miami New
Times. He is still in prison though his spirit remains
strong. Several congressional and religious delegations have
visited him over the past weeks and news of the international struggle to
free him gives him hope. Keep up the pressure and thank you for
your love and support!<br><br>
Also, below is an article on the use of USAID programs to placate
resistance and protest in Father Jean Juste's neighborhood.<br><br>
<img src="cid:6.2.1.2.2.20051031053219.0271db80@mail.freedomarchives.org.2" width=174 height=222 alt="49b12e73.jpg">
<img src="cid:6.2.1.2.2.20051031053219.0271db80@mail.freedomarchives.org.3" width=174 height=128 alt="49b12ed1.jpg">
<br><br>
Free This Priest<br>
Father Gerard Jean-Juste is no outlaw. He's a Magic City hero.<br>
By Chuck Strouse<br><br>
Published: Thursday, October 27, 2005<br>
<a href="http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-10-27/news/strouse.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2005-10-27/news/strouse.html<br>
</a>Miaminewtimes.com<br><br>
First a rock smashed the front window. Then, after a metal shutter
was<br>
slammed shut, a bottle exploded against it. Then another. And
another.<br><br>
A thousand Haitians burst through a police barricade one steamy
summer<br>
Saturday in 1990 and swarmed a storefront off Biscayne Boulevard.<br>
Inside, as muscular Cuban-American shopkeeper Luis Reyes snapped on
a<br>
bulletproof vest, one Miami cop loaded his shotgun while another
pulled<br>
his pistol. I sat on a box in the rear, terrified. "They've moved
the<br>
Dumpster against the back door," Reyes said. "They're starting
a fire."<br><br>
Early in the day, after a store clerk had pummeled a
Haitian-American<br>
shopper, Kreyol-language radio announcers egged on the attack at the<br>
Rapid Transit Factory Outlet on 79th Street. A mob gathered. I was<br>
there. Then a young news reporter, I had heard the broadcasts and<br>
wandered inside just before the violence began.<br><br>
After several hours, when there was a lull and the fire had been<br>
extinguished, one of the cops decided I should leave. "It might
get<br>
ugly," he said. "You'll be safer outside." So I tucked my
notebook in<br>
my pocket, cracked the door, and exited. I was the target for a
fuming<br>
crowd. "Journaliste," I shouted, hands aloft.
"Reporter."<br><br>
Several men crouched. One moved toward me. I distinctly recall his<br>
angry expression and bloodshot eyes.<br><br>
Then there was a hand on my shoulder, the word friend was spoken in<br>
Kreyol, and in an instant the mood changed. The crowd embraced
me.<br><br>
The hand and the word belonged to Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, whose
actions<br>
saved me and the others in the store that day. Speaking through a<br>
megaphone, he eventually, peacefully, helped end the attack.<br><br>
Now Jean-Juste a puckish, pudgy-faced, twelve-year South Florida<br>
resident who left Miami soon after the riot and has ministered to<br>
Haiti's poor children ever since is stuck in a prison cell in<br>
Port-au-Prince. Falsely accused of participating in the killing of
his<br>
cousin, journalist Jacques Roche, he has become a martyr. Amnesty<br>
International has declared him a prisoner of conscience. Thirty-four<br>
members of Congress have called for his release. And 400 clergy of
all<br>
stripes signed a petition demanding his freedom.<br><br>
The man ultimately responsible for jailing Jean-Juste on the
trumped-up<br>
charges he was in Miami at the time Roche was kidnapped is<br>
long-time Boca Raton radio commentator Gerard Latortue, who's now
the<br>
country's interim prime minister.<br><br>
The dispute is a distinctly South Florida affair.<br><br>
"Jean-Juste is still a hero here," comments Dufirstson Neree,
a<br>
thrice-minted Ivy League grad and Haitian American who's running for<br>
Congress from an area that includes Little Haiti. "No one can
defend<br>
the position that he is a terrorist or a menace to
society."<br><br>
Three decades ago, Jean-Juste became the first Haitian ordained as a<br>
Roman Catholic priest in the United States. In 1978, just two years<br>
before a huge wave of his countrymen transformed Miami in a
boatlift,<br>
he helped establish the Haitian Refugee Center, a group that has
fought<br>
all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court for the rights of people from
the<br>
world's first independent black republic.<br><br>
Jack Lieberman, another HRC cofounder, remembers that Jean-Juste
manned<br>
the center in Liberty City and helped keep the peace during the many<br>
Eighties riots that shook the Magic City. "When he first came to
the<br>
Haitian Refugee Center, most of the church agencies wanted to treat
the<br>
Haitian refugee issue as one of charity," Lieberman says.
"Jean-Juste<br>
pointed out that there was an injustice. Cubans were treated better<br>
than Haitians."<br><br>
In the years that followed, Jean-Juste organized marches against<br>
Haiti's Duvalier regime, bad U.S. immigration law, and
discriminatory<br>
policies in everything from housing to blood donation. For the Miami<br>
Herald I covered a half-dozen protests he led with megaphone in hand.
I<br>
studied Kreyol and sat with him in the empty office of Veye Yo, a<br>
political meeting house on 54th Street he helped create.<br><br>
He often spoke of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Gandhi. He was a true<br>
leader.<br><br>
Of course, he was a rabble-rouser. Archbishop Edward McCarthy was<br>
suspicious of Jean-Juste's Liberation Theology leaning and denied him
a<br>
pulpit. In response, Jean-Juste termed McCarthy a racist. After
several<br>
drowned Haitian boat people washed up on a South Florida beach,<br>
Jean-Juste sued, claimed the bodies, and turned the burial into a<br>
protest.<br><br>
In 1991, after Jean-Bertrand Aristide took power in a rare
democratic<br>
election in Haiti, he returned home. "After all the years in exile,
he<br>
needed to go back to minister to his people," comments Lavarice
Gaudin,<br>
director of Veye Yo today. "He's always been a nonviolent man, but
one<br>
who will nevertheless push for what is right."<br><br>
He also gained political power as Aristide appointed him<br>
minister/liaison for Haitians living abroad. Then, only seven months<br>
after Jean-Juste had arrived on the island, Aristide was ousted by a<br>
bloody military coup. Jean-Juste went into hiding for three
years.<br><br>
He turned up on the island again in 1994, after U.N. forces returned<br>
Aristide to power. For the next ten years, he traveled often between<br>
the United States and Haiti, paying particular attention to South<br>
Florida, where more than 250,000 Haitians live. He visited his
sister<br>
Francine, who lives in Broward County, and sometimes led protests. At
a<br>
demonstration in Washington, D.C., in 1997, the year the Florida<br>
Marlins won the World Series, he told the assembled thousands:
"The<br>
same way all of us came together in Miami to celebrate the Marlins <br>
black, white, and brown let us all come together for justice, peace,<br>
and fairness."<br><br>
In 1998, on his radio show from Port-au-Prince, Ginen, he helped<br>
authorities find the parents of a twelve-year-old girl who was
gunned<br>
down in an Allapattah flea market.<br><br>
In Haiti he ministered to a parish of 80,000 Haitian families in a<br>
church on a dirt road outside Port-au-Prince. He organized a program
to<br>
feed 600 youngsters twice a week. And, of course, he politicked,<br>
pushing relentlessly for Aristide, even after the president was<br>
overthrown in a bloody coup in February 2004.<br><br>
Jean-Juste's serious problems began in October of last year. Armed<br>
security officers dressed in black and wearing black ski masks
arrived<br>
at his church, broke through iron bars and windows, and then dragged<br>
him away on suspicion of inciting violence and hiding pro-Aristide<br>
gunmen.<br><br>
Back then, only 20 of 1000 inmates in the prison where Jean-Juste
was<br>
housed had even seen a judge, according to Bill Quigley, a Loyola<br>
University law professor who has represented Jean-Juste in Haitian<br>
courts. "In jail," Quigley says, there were "no beds, no
blankets, and<br>
no water to bathe."<br><br>
The priest was released after seven weeks for lack of evidence. "It
is<br>
a big mistake of trying to lock up this guy who is speaking
truth,"<br>
Quigley adds. "He has never said anything about violence; he has
never<br>
raised a gun."<br><br>
This past July, Jean-Juste visited South Florida and led a<br>
demonstration at the Brazilian Consulate in Miami. The protestors
urged<br>
that nation which is led by a former union organizer named Luiz<br>
Inácio da Silva to speak out against the United Nations' role in 23<br>
killings in Cité Soleil on the island. "He came to town, said we
had<br>
this massacre occur, conditions are horrible, please do
something,"<br>
Lieberman says. "So we went to the consulate and basically pleaded
our<br>
case."<br><br>
A couple of days later, Jean-Juste headed back to Haiti. Three Veye
Yo<br>
members I spoke with said a pro-government Kreyol-language radio
host<br>
in Miami called for violence toward Jean-Juste back on the island.<br>
"Before Father Jean-Juste left, everybody knew something would
happen<br>
to him," Veye Yo's Gaudin comments. "But he said he had a
mission."<br><br>
In Haiti, Jean-Juste along with Quigley, who was visiting decided<br>
to attend the funeral of the murdered journalist Roche, a supporter
of<br>
the interim government whose family is related to Jean-Juste's.
There<br>
the crowd beat them and chased them into a toilet stall before<br>
Jean-Juste was arrested and thrown into a jail, where he has
remained<br>
ever since.<br><br>
Amnesty International termed him a political prisoner a few days
later.<br>
This past August, Jean-Juste fell ill and nearly died in the prison.<br>
Recently recovered, he now sleeps on a rubber mat on a concrete
floor<br>
beneath a picture of murdered Salvadoran priest Oscar Romero.<br><br>
In September a group of U.S. Representatives including Kendrick
Meek,<br>
Robert Wexler, and Alcee Hastings all Democrats sent a letter to<br>
Prime Minister Latortue calling for Jean-Juste's freedom. Referring
to<br>
the release of a convicted murderer, Louis Jodel Chamblain, Meek
said,<br>
"It is a sad day when a respected community leader, committed
to<br>
helping the poor, is locked away in a prison cell while a convicted<br>
human rights abuser walks free."<br><br>
In Little Haiti, Jean-Juste's supporters have hung pictures
emblazoned<br>
with "Free Jean-Juste" in many restaurants and businesses.
"Jean-Juste<br>
is my best friend," says Merus Benoit, who owns Ben Photo studio on
NE<br>
54th Street. "He suggested I go to Miami Dade College to learn
English.<br>
Any time he needed a picture taken, I took it. I'd do anything for
him"<br><br>
At the urging of the Bush administration, elections in Haiti were<br>
scheduled for November (though they were recently postponed until<br>
December) and more than a half-dozen Haitian presidential candidates<br>
have raised money in South Florida. Jean-Juste has even pondered a
try;<br>
on August 25, he told the Associated Press he would run for
president<br>
"if Aristide approves my candidacy." But then, after the
Archdiocese in<br>
Haiti disciplined him, he withdrew.<br><br>
The problem in Haiti is not quick elections (just as that is not the<br>
answer in George W. Bush's more distant morass, Iraq). The answer is<br>
more U.S. aid to Haiti, more help to beleaguered U.N. troops there,
and<br>
a concerted campaign to free Jean-Juste and jailed former Prime<br>
Minister Yvon Neptune. Miami, more than any other U.S. city, has a<br>
strong tie to the island nation. And to many of the Haitians here,<br>
Jean-Juste's imprisonment is the top issue.<br><br>
"Jean-Juste is a black eye on the government of Haiti," Neree
says. "As<br>
long as he is in jail, there can be no free and fair
elections."<br><br>
************************************<br><br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.counterpunch.org/kramer10142005.html" eudora="autourl">
http://www.counterpunch.org/kramer10142005.html<br><br>
</a>October 14, 2005<br><br>
The Friendly Face of US Imperialism<br><br>
USAID and Haiti<br><br>
By SASHA KRAMER<br><br>
On the ground United States foreign assistance projects often mean
desperately needed food and employment for the poor, impossible to
resist, difficult to critique. But from the vantage point of US foreign
policy objectives a very different picture emerges and long-term and
global outcomes often differ dramatically from the immediate consequences
of relief efforts. <br><br>
The United States International Development Agency (USAID) emerged as an
arm of US foreign policy following the Second World War. The Agency was
developed to provide foreign relief and development assistance in
accordance with US policy objectives. According to the USAID website
(<a href="http://www.usaid.gov/" eudora="autourl">www.usaid.gov</a>) the
organization operates under the following mandate. <br><br>
<br>
"U.S. foreign assistance has always had the twofold purpose of
furthering America's foreign policy interests in expanding democracy and
free markets while improving the lives of the citizens of the developing
world." <br><br>
This dual mandate raises the important question of whether US policy
interests generally result in improved living conditions for the majority
of the world's poor? While it may occasionally be the case that the
interests of the US government and the poverty stricken citizens around
the world are aligned, more often than not, US economic and political
interests are dependent on the exploitation and manipulation of workers
and consumers in the developing world. It is this inherent contradiction
within the USAID mandate that should cause skepticism among US taxpayers
concerned with issues of social justice and self determination. <br><br>
The fundamental problem with USAID's stated objectives is that it is not
in the national interests of the US government to promote self
sufficiency in developing countries. US economic interests are fed by
foreign dependency on US imports and loans. Political interests are
served by maintaining an economic stranglehold on foreign governments,
and many a strategic alliance has been forged out of economic necessity.
Among USAID's operating tenets are sustainability and local capacity
building, noble goals but highly dependent on how these tenets are
defined and the manner in which they are implemented. Sustainability of
what, and which local capacities are being supported? Implementation is
primarily shaped by another of USAID's governing tenets, selectivity, the
allocation of resources based on foreign policy interests. <br><br>
The recently released USAID Haiti Field Report provides an excellent case
study for investigating the role of USAID in promoting US foreign policy
objectives under the friendly guise of aid. Much of USAID's current work
in Haiti is carried out under the umbrella of the Haiti Transition
Initiative (HTI), a program developed by USAID's Office for Transition
Initiatives (OTI) in May 2004 to "emphasize stability-building
measures in key crisis spots." <br><br>
The OTI was created within USAID in 1994 "to provide fast, flexible,
short-term assistance to take advantage of windows of opportunity to
build democracy and peace" in countries experiencing political
turmoil. According to the OTI website the organization accomplishes its
objectives by specifically encouraging "a culture of risk-taking,
political orientation, and swift response among its staff and
partners." The Haiti Field Report explores how short term assistance
programs provided within a culture of political orientation can be used
to distort international perceptions of Haiti's complicated political
terrain, as the elections approach. <br><br>
The United States is primarily concerned with Haiti's upcoming elections
occurring on schedule, so that a new government can be in place by
February 2006. In Haiti, as in Iraq and Afghanistan, the timeliness and
appearance of legitimacy of the electoral process are of paramount
importance for the Bush Administration's PR machine, which tends to
equate elections with democracy, boasting that the United States is
benevolently promoting "democracies" around the world. USAID
describes their objectives as follows: "Haiti's future depends on
elections that are considered free and fair to ensure the legitimacy of
the new government and enhance their ability to govern effectively. The
stabilization of the political and security environment in Haiti is
central to U.S. foreign policy and USAID objectives."<br><br>
What sort of democracy is the United States promoting in Haiti, where the
duly elected president was spirited away on a US military jet against his
will, as the country once again fell into the hands of the powerful elite
and brutal former military? Haiti is now governed by a cadre of unelected
officials overseen by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, a Haitian
businessman and former radio show host that lived in Boca Raton Florida
for the 15 years preceding his unconstitutional rise to office. In direct
contradiction to actual events and the laws of the Haitian Constitution,
USAID describes Haiti's unelected Interim Government as "benefiting
from the support of democratic institutions." They further state
that the "political transition" of February 29, 2004
"created a new environment for collaboration with the Interim
Government of Haiti," indicating their willingness to work closely
with an illegitimate government accused of numerous human rights abuses
over the past year in order to promote US interests. <br><br>
USAID's Haiti Field Report, which can be found on the USAID website,
presents a glowing image of US development efforts in this
"troubled" country, through a carefully-crafted compilation of
selective facts. In August alone, USAID invested over 4 million dollars
towards projects in Haiti. These projects include road and canal clean-up
projects, terracing of hillsides to prevent erosion and electricity
projects. On the surface it is difficult to criticize the provision of
badly needed clean-up efforts and employment opportunities and certainly
these programs have had benefits within the community. The questions are:
what is the long term viability of these projects, and who are the
primary beneficiaries? A far more detailed on-the-ground investigation
would be required to determine how these programs will differentially
benefit various local and international interests in the short and long
term. <br><br>
Other USAID projects that have more obvious political implications are
short term nutrition and recreational initiatives in "key crisis
areas." The report outlines USAID's strategy for pacifying Haiti's
largest political party, Lavalas through selective distribution of aid
resources. In August the Haiti Transition Initiative set up 26 "Play
for Peace" camps in Port au Prince, Cap Haitien, St. Marc and
several other "target" cities. These camps are designed to
provide food and activities to desperately poor communities; essential
services, the importance of which is not in question. <br><br>
What is questionable is the way in which these camps are used to
undermine existing community programs in an attempt to de-legitimize the
demands of the Lavalas movement in the eyes of the international
community. This strategy is exemplified by USAID's description of their
activities in Petit Place Cazeau, the community that is home to Father
Gerard Jean Juste's parish of St. Claire. Father Jean Juste, illegally
imprisoned since July 21, 2005, is a popular priest and outspoken
opponent of the unelected interim government. USAID's Haiti Field Report
describes their activity in Father Jean Juste's neighborhood as
follows:<br><br>
<br>
"OTI initiated a Play for Peace summer camp in Petit Place Cazeau,
the Port au Prince stronghold of Lavalas party presidential candidate
Father Gerard Jean Juste. [] The fruits of these efforts were seen during
a recent demonstration attended by 200 people. At the same time that the
demonstration was taking place, 300 people were enjoying the summer camp.
It is believed that the camp prevented the demonstration from being
larger and giving greater legitimacy to the protesters. The coming weeks
will see a deepening of OTI activities in Petit Place Cazeau, where
events like the summer camp will become increasingly important now that
Father Jean Juste has been arrested. His imprisonment has inflamed
pro-Lavalas fires in the area and made him a martyr to some
Haitians."<br><br>
This report presents a picture of US aid that is simultaneously
disturbing and refreshingly honest. The fact that the "fruits of
these efforts" are described as the camps' potential to
de-legitimize protest as opposed to their success in providing basic
services to the community, speaks volumes to USAID's primary motivations,
motivations which will shape long term outcomes. USAID is an arm of the
US State Department reporting directly to Condoleezza Rice and their
stated objective is to use aid to pursue outcomes desired by the State
Department. In this case the State Department is eager to for the
upcoming elections to appear legitimate as evident in Condoleezza Rice's
recent visit to Haiti in which she stressed the importance of timeliness
and legitimacy.<br><br>
In order for this goal to be achieved it is critical to stifle resistance
to the elections. Resistance is being tackled on two fronts. In the past
year, thousands of former elected officials and community organizers have
been imprisoned, forced into hiding or killed, with many innocent
civilians caught in the crossfire. This overt stifling of dissent is
implemented by Haiti's unelected interim government through the Haitian
National Police, a brutal police forced armed by the United States and
under the control of the United Nations. <br><br>
USAID uses a different tactic for pacifying the poor in Haiti who have
been rightfully outraged by the destruction of their democracy, rise in
the cost of living and ongoing government-sponsored repression.
Understanding the level of desperation in these communities, short term
provision of services is used as a way to draw people away from
protesting these conditions with a warm meal. As people are fed they can
be quietly indoctrinated with the notion that these camps provide an
alternative to the "violence" of Lavalas. The provision of
entertainment and meals may provide a temporary alleviation of suffering
but they do nothing to address the underlying causes of that suffering
which are deeply entangled in with the disruption of Haiti's democracy in
2004. A full stomach will not end the police killings, it will not free
the political prisoners and it will not result in the reestablishment of
social programs in Haiti; but it may give a hungry person a moment of
peace. Full stomachs and soccer are excellent tools for temporarily
easing suffering to pacify protest and give the country the appearance of
calm in the run up to the elections but they are not a sustainable
solution to the many problems that prevent these elections from being
free and fair, nor will they promote a democracy that truly represents
that Haitian people. The long term implications of installing an
illegitimate government could far outweigh the short term benefits
enjoyed by those attending the camps. <br><br>
Other questions about these programs include: how long will these
programs feed the hungry and what is their effect on pre-existing
programs in Petit Place Cazeau, that were not mentioned in the report?
Long before USAID initiated the Play for Peace camps in the neighborhood,
Father Jean Juste and the St. Claire community were providing vocational
training classes, recreational activities and meals to thousands of
children in the neighborhood. Now with Father Jean Juste in prison these
programs are at risk. Unlike Father Jean Juste's commitment to empowering
the community, USAIDs stated goal of pacifying political protest through
aid is decidedly a short term strategy, and these camps are not likely to
provide a sustainable source of aid after political objectives have been
met. If USAID were truly interested in improving the lives of poor people
they would support the maintenance of existing programs by joining
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, 29 members of Congress, and
over 400 religious leaders in calling for the release of Father Jean
Juste, a cornerstone of many community development projects in Petit
Place Cazeau.<br><br>
As stated in the document, the coming weeks will see increased expansion
of USAID programs in Petit Place Cazeau and in other key areas like
Milot, where Lavalas remains strong. These developments are of interest
not only for those concerned with US subversion of democracy in Haiti but
also to those interested in understanding USAID's operations throughout
the world. This explicit acknowledgement of the motivations underlying
aid in Petit Place Cazeau provides and excellent case study and these
developments deserve ongoing scrutiny. Despite its beneficent name, USAID
is doing what it was designed to do, play off the hunger of the starving,
and the boredom of the unemployed, to further US policy interests. In
Haiti this means propping up and illegitimate foreign government in the
face of massive resistance, a difficult task best carried out through a
combination of violent repression and foreign aid, the friendly face of
US imperialism.<br><br>
<b>Father Jean Juste's Response:<br><br>
</b>When presented with this report and asked for his opinion Father Jean
Juste said that even though the IOM report speaks badly of him, that
doesn't bother him. He doesn't care what IOM says, he only cares about
what they do. What work are they doing?<br>
He explained that the work should be done, for the people to
benefit. It is important to understand the strategy behind the
projects while still taking advantage of the benefits. If people
are starving let them feed them...<br><br>
"The people know where the truth is."<br><br>
<br><br>
<br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">The Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br>
(415) 863-9977<br>
</font><font size=3>
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.freedomarchives.org</a></font></body>
</html>