HIP — Port au Prince, Haiti over four months ago.

Mrs, James, widow of the renowned author CLR James who wrote the book The Black Jacobins stated, “We have an oblig­a­tion to do some­thing. We can’t just stand by…for exam­ple we have to ask the Com­mis­sioner for Human Rights and Forced Dis­ap­pear­ances of the United Nations to take some action. We have to leave no stone unturned.” Mrs. James con­tin­ued, “What is the United States doing? The United States has enor­mous pow­ers to find peo­ple, or i think to lose them sometimes…so let us ask them what are they doing with the great resources that they have always had at their dis­posal. We must demand that he return…we are not satisfied.”

Amnesty Inter­na­tional issued a press release this past Decem­ber 20 call­ing upon Hait­ian author­i­ties to step up their efforts to find Mr. Pierre-Antoine and to pro­vide pro­tec­tion to Mr. Mesilien. In their press release Renata Ren­don of Amnesty Inter­na­tional USA stated, “The Hait­ian author­i­ties have a respon­si­bil­ity under inter­na­tional law to pro­tect the legit­i­mate rights of human rights defend­ers to orga­nize and take action with­out restric­tions or fear of reprisals.”

Accord­ing to Mr. Mesilien a new round of threats against him began on Christ­mas eve begin­ning with rumors spread through­out the cap­i­tal that he had been abducted. “This is how it usu­ally begins.…with rumors that some­thing has already hap­pened to you. This was fol­lowed by more direct threats against me and the Sep­tem­ber 30 Foun­da­tion. I am obliged to take pre­cau­tions for my per­sonal safety and that of my fam­ily.” stated Mr. Mesilien dur­ing a phone inter­view yes­ter­day from an undis­closed loca­tion in Haiti’s capital.

The Haiti Infor­ma­tion Project