By Wad­ner Pierre and Jeb Sprague

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Aug 20 (IPS) — Gov­ern­ment author­i­ties in Haiti face recent crit­i­cism over alle­ga­tions that they con­tinue to jail polit­i­cal dissidents.

Accord­ing to Amnesty, “the delay in bring­ing Ronald Dauphin to trial is unjus­ti­fi­able and is polit­i­cally moti­vated”. The organ­i­sa­tion “opposes Ronald Dauphin’s con­tin­ued deten­tion with­out trial, which is in vio­la­tion of his rights, and urges the Hait­ian author­i­ties to release him pend­ing trial.”

Amnesty noted that Dauphin’s health has dete­ri­o­rated severely in Haiti’s National Pen­i­ten­tiary, which is noto­ri­ous for the appalling con­di­tions to which it sub­jects inmates. One of Dauphin’s co-defendants, Wan­tales Lorme­juste, died in prison from untreated tuber­cu­lo­sis in April 2007.

In May 2009, doc­tors exam­ined Dauphin and called on the author­i­ties to imme­di­ately trans­fer him to a hos­pi­tal. But today, nearly five and half years since his orig­i­nal arrest, he has not seen his day in court and remains locked up.

Demon­stra­tions in down­town Port-au-Prince, with hun­dreds of sup­port­ers, occur here on a weekly basis, call­ing for the release of polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. They are organ­ised by local grass­roots groups such as the Kolek­tif Fan­miy Pri­zonye Politk Yo, Fon­dasyon 30 Sep­tanm, Orga­ni­za­syon AbaSa­tan, and the Group Defans Pri­zonye Poli­tik Yo.

Last year, the Inter Amer­i­can Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ordered the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to imme­di­ately improve prison con­di­tions. That rul­ing also ordered the Hait­ian gov­ern­ment to pay 95,000 dol­lars in dam­ages to Yvon Nep­tune, one of Ronald Dauphins co-defendants, for numer­ous vio­la­tions of his legal rights.

The Hait­ian gov­ern­ment has dis­re­garded the rul­ing to date. Nep­tune received a “pro­vi­sional release” in 2006 after spend­ing two years in prison but the case against him has yet to be dis­missed, despite an appeals court order in his favour.

RNDDH received fund­ing from the Cana­dian gov­ern­ment for the pros­e­cu­tion of the sup­posed per­pe­tra­tors of the mas­sacre. How­ever, U.N. inves­ti­ga­tors — despite U.N. hos­til­ity to Fanmi Lavalas and sup­port for the coup-installed gov­ern­ment that ruled Haiti until 2006 — have not backed the accu­sa­tions made by RNDDH.

In 2005, the U.N. Human Rights Commission’s inde­pen­dent expert on human rights in Haiti, Louis Joinet, con­cluded that what hap­pened at St. Marc was that armed groups –sup­port­ers and oppo­nents of the Aris­tide gov­ern­ment — clashed and that there were casu­al­ties on both sides.

In 2006, Thierry Fagart, head of the Human Rights depart­ment of the U.N. peace­keep­ing mis­sion in Haiti, rebuked RNDDH for never sub­stan­ti­at­ing its alle­ga­tions by even pro­vid­ing a list of the names of the victims.

Amnesty International’s appeal on behalf of Ronald Dauphin also called for an impar­tial and thor­ough inves­ti­ga­tion into the events that took place in St. Marc, and it observed that “The inves­ti­gat­ing mag­is­trate has only focused on the alleged crimes com­mit­ted by the group sup­port­ing for­mer pres­i­dent Jean-Bertrand Aris­tide and failed to iden­tify the vic­tims among the for­mer pres­i­dent sup­port­ers and their alleged perpetrators.”

In July, the direc­tor of RNDDH, Pierre Esper­ance, told IPS, “In our sys­tem, the crim­i­nal becomes a vic­tim because the sys­tem doesn’t work.”

Brian Con­can­non of the Insti­tute for Jus­tice and Democ­racy in Haiti (IJDH) agreed that the short­com­ings of Haiti’s legal and prison sys­tem pun­ish the inno­cent and guilty alike.

How­ever, Con­can­non noted that the coup-installed gov­ern­ment of 2004–2006 “arrested hun­dreds of polit­i­cal oppo­nents, some at the insis­tence of RNDDH. Over five years after the arrests began, not a sin­gle polit­i­cal pris­oner has been con­victed of any crime.”

Work­ing class Hait­ian activist groups like Veye-yo, which is based in Miami, have been call­ing on Clin­ton to work on behalf of Ronald Dauphin as he recently did on behalf of U.S. jour­nal­ists impris­oned in North Korea. A group of Veye-yo activists assem­bled just out­side the resort call­ing for such action.

The Hait­ian gov­ern­ment denies that it holds polit­i­cal pris­on­ers. Haiti’s ambas­sador to the United States, Ray­mond Joseph, deny­ing that he has even heard of Dauphin, says, “There are no polit­i­cal pris­on­ers in Haiti. The fact that Nep­tune and the oth­ers are out of jail and they were the most promi­nent and that this per­son… is still in jail, to me under­scores… some peo­ple are in jail but not for polit­i­cal rea­sons, but since they belong to a cer­tain party they are shop­ping this around and say­ing ‘its because I belong to this party that I’m in jail’”.

“Because of their strong feel­ings that Pres­i­dent Aris­tide is the true spokesman for their aspi­ra­tions they were put in jail on trumped up charges, never a day in court and they are sit­ting there for years,” he said.

Dauphin learned about Amnesty’s state­ment on his behalf while lis­ten­ing to a radio inter­view that his attor­ney, Mario Joseph (of the Bureau des Avo­cats Inter­na­tionaux), was giv­ing about his case.

Dauphin’s wife told IPS, “Ronald was pleased when he heard the news on the radio”. How­ever, she remains dis­traught over her husband’s sit­u­a­tion. His ail­ing mother, Janne, who is 78, is also suf­fer­ing immensely won­der­ing what will become of her son.

(END/2009)