December 12, 2006
Half-Hour for Haiti: Where is René Civil’s File?
Update: We have some incremental good news this week. Nothing worthy of a celebration, but steps in the right direction. On debt relief, soon-to-be-powerful members of the U.S. House of Representatives wrote to the Inter-American Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, urging complete and full debt cancellation for Haiti. On Monday, the Port-au-Prince appeals court heard the case of former political prisoner Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste, still charged with illegal gun possession. The court did not issue a decision, but the prosecutor, Patrick Pierre-Fils asked the court to dismiss the charges as unfounded. Also, the Vatican has responded to Fr. Jean-Juste’s appeal of his suspension (see our November 16 alert). We do not know that decision either- it is in the mail- but a response is progress.
Tomorrow (Wednesday) several human rights groups in Haiti will launch the Coordination National des Organisations de Droits Humaines (CONODH), a progressive human rights network. We’ll have more on CONODH next week. On Friday, the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux urged President René Préval to create a National Commission for Justice, Reconciliation and Reparations.
IJDH has been having problems with its telephones, so we apologize for anyone who has tried unsuccessfully to reach us. Our email and cell (541-263-0029) are working.
A member of the Half Hour for Haiti community suggested we provide postage amounts for our alerts. For this week’s alert, a 1-2 page letter (less than 1 oz.) sent by airmail to Haiti will cost .84 from the U.S. Last week’s letter to Louise Arbour in Switzerland would cost .84 from the U.S., $1.49 from Canada.
Extra Credit Reading: Paul Farmer has an excellent article in Notre Dame Magazine, If We Fail To Act , about the social justice implications of suffering in Haiti and countries like it, and the developed world’s policies towards those countries.
This Week’s Action is from the Bay Area Haiti Action Committee, on behalf of René Civil, who has been in jail since August. Mr. Civil’s lawyers at the Bureau des Avocats Internationaux have appealed the charges against him, but the appeals court can not hear it because it does not have the file. The file was supposed to have been sent by the prosecutor Claudy Gassant, but Gassant’s office claims it does not now have the file. Click here for the Haiti Action Committee’s full alert, with photos. The text version is below:
Haiti Action Committee:
René Civil — Still in Jail !!!
HaitiAction.net — Today the Haiti Action Committee called for the immediate release of political prisoner René Civil and all political prisoners a day before a U.S. Congressional delegation arrives in Port au Prince that is on a fact finding mission on human rights. The text of the action alert follows:
Urgent Action Alert from the Haiti Action Committee
Demand release of jailed democracy fighter René Civil!
Don't let them silence the voices of Haiti's poor majority!
Free René and all political prisoners!
René Civil, one of Haiti's most well respected grass roots activists, is still in jail. Despite massive protests in Haiti calling for the release of all political prisoners, René and hundreds of others remain locked down in Haiti's jails. It is past time for their release.
We call upon the government of President René Preval to stand up to the US/UN occupiers of Haiti and release these political prisoners.
WHO IS RENÉ CIVIL?
Mr. Civil is a leading grassroots activist with Haiti's Lavalas movement. He was a founding member and leader of Jeunesse Pouvoir Populaire or JPP (Youth/People's Power), a youth movement founded after the 1991-94 coup when President Aristide returned to Haiti. The JPP organized young people in the struggle for democracy, mainly in the poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince. The JPP provided financial support to encourage the youth to pursue their studies in school or learn a trade, and set up centers where young people could get a hot meal and political education.
Two days before his arrest, René Civil addressed the 3rd Solidarity Encounter with the Haitian People, at the Aristide Foundation in Port-au-Prince. He denounced the system "which causes economic, political, military and social war on the people of the world", and which is preventing poor nations like Haiti from exercising their independence. "The people of Haiti," he said, "who believe in freedom, who have tasted freedom, will never accept this criminal, slaving system."
1. The Illegal Political Arrest — — Late in the night of August 25-26 Mr. Civil was illegally arrested by Haitian police without a warrant. On August 28, Civil was interrogated by the new prosecutor of Port-au-Prince, Claudy Gassant, a well-known opponent of Lavalas, and thrown in the notorious National Penitentiary. Brother René remains incarcerated today, one of hundreds of political prisoners languishing in Haiti's prisons. According to a report on HaitiWebs, when Mr. Civil left the court building after his hearing he defiantly thrust his manacled hands in the air and said: "Liberty or death. I have been arrested unjustly, with false accusations, because I defend democracy and the return of President Aristide. This is a political arrest."
2. The Fake Charges — René Civil was originally arrested on three charges — all bogus. The first, "use of a stolen vehicle," involves a car Civil has owned for six years and had registered with the police. [While Civil was in exile, the police themselves seized the car and used it for two years. Civil had only recently reclaimed his car.] The second charge relates to two pistols in the possession of others in the car, not Mr. Civil. The third charge, "association with wrongdoers," is a vague conspiracy charge often used to keep democracy activists in prison — including former political prisoners Father Gerard Jean-Juste and former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune — without a shred of evidence that they committed any crime.
3. The Hounding of René Civil — After the February 29, 2004 kidnapping and coup d'état that overthrew the democratically elected government of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, René Civil went into exile for two years in the Dominican Republic. On his return to Haiti on May 12, 2006 he was arrested at the border and jailed for two weeks — on an earlier set of trumped-up charges. Those charges were dropped on August 14. Barely two weeks later, he was arrested and jailed again!
4. "The Coup regime people are the ones responsible for my arrest" — Visited in prison by San Francisco writer Ben Terrall, Civil said his arrest was a provocation directed at the base of Lavalas. He said the people responsible for his arrest are the same people behind the 2004 coup, who hate President Aristide and any expression of popular democracy.
Your action now can make the difference.
Write to Haiti's Minister of Justice René Magloire.
Letters can be sent directly to Maitre Magloire by regular mail.
Or, you can send them to René Civil's lawyers by fax at 206-350-7986 (a U.S. number) or by email to avokahaiti@aol.com. His lawyers will see they are promptly delivered. In your letter, very simply state (in any language) that this was an unjust political arrest of a pro-democracy activist, and demand the immediate release of political prisoner René Civil.
Address your letter to: Maitre René Magloire, Ministre de la Justice
At: Ministere de la Justice 18
Avenue Charles Sumner
Port-au-Prince, Haiti
For more information:
www.haitiaction.net
510-483-7481
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For more information about the Half-Hour for Haiti Program, the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, or human rights in Haiti, see www.HaitiJustice.org. To receive Half-Hour for Haiti Action Alerts once per week, send an email to HalfHour4Haiti@ijdh.org.
