San Francisco Bay View www.sfbayview.com/

 

(first ran in the SF Bayview)

February 3, 2005

Out of prison, priest renews call for democracy, Aristide in Haiti by Judith Scherr

The timing of the arrest may have been a coincidence – or maybe not.

It was Oct. 13, just two hours after his cell phone conversation with friend and political ally, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s ousted president, when black-hooded police with automatic weapons burst into the churchyard where Father Gérard Jean-Juste was feeding some 600 children. The men grabbed the priest and took him to prison, shooting and wounding three of the children as they left.

The telephone conversation might have been of interest to a George W. Bush supporter, had such a person been listening in to the dialogue between the priest and the exiled president. Aristide was removed from Haiti Feb. 29, 2004, by U.S. officials and now, recognized as a head of state, stays as a guest in South Africa, where he and his wife Mildred research and teach at a university. Aristide says U.S. officials forced him out of Haiti; the U.S. says Aristide asked to leave.

The Oct. 13 phone conversation wasn’t about Haiti, where Aristide supporters are murdered, jailed or run out of the country on a daily basis. The conversation focused on the upcoming U.S. elections and on the priest’s vacation plans.

“I said, ‘Oh President, I’m going to have one more vacation. I’m going to the U.S. – it’s election time. I wish that people can come out in big numbers and vote in the United States. Maybe we’ll have a friendly candidate win, and things will go better for Haiti.’”

Jean-Juste told the story of his arrest and talked about the recent face-to-face visit with Aristide Saturday evening, when some 250 people filled the pews at St. Joseph the Worker Church in Berkeley. It was just one stop on a three-day Bay Area speaking/media tour that took Jean-Juste from Palo Alto to the East Bay and Marin County. The visit was sponsored by the What If? Foundation, which funds Jean Juste’s meals program, and by the Haiti Action Committee, an organization that supports the democratic movement in Haiti.

“I told President Aristide I was going to Florida to stay for a month,” Jean-Juste said. The priest’s pre-election season “vacation” in Florida was to be spent working with a coalition of Jewish-Americans, Haitian-Americans and African-Americans – John Kerry supporters – to encourage their participation in the upcoming elections.

“Those who cannot vote can assist. That’s my role every time there is an election. We have rallies, meetings.” (Jean-Juste spent time in Florida before the 2000 election as well.)

The outspoken priest, the first Haitian ordained in the United States, is known throughout the world as a humanitarian who worked in Florida with Haitian refugees during “Baby Doc” Duvalier’s dictatorship and the military rule that followed. He cited a number of reasons to oppose the current U.S. administration.

One is the war in Iraq. “The sons of the poorest U.S. citizens are dying in the wars. There is no reason to go to war. I see so many young Americans being killed in Iraq. In the ‘60s people stood up to say ‘no’ to the Viet Nam War. Today we must wake up and say, ‘No more war.’”

The core of Jean-Juste’s opposition to the Bush regime – Juste likes to refer to “right-wing elements” in the Republican administration – is the defiling of the Haitian constitution: the democratically-elected leader was banished from his country and hundreds of Aristide supporters have been illegally arrested, beaten and even killed since that time.

“When I see President Bush swear he’ll defend the constitution, I say, “Will George Bush respect the constitution of Haiti, too?”

Jean-Juste never got the vacation he’d planned. Instead, he spent the next seven weeks in jail. “I was arrested before the elections and kept in jail until after,” he said.

But doing jail time didn’t discourage the priest. It gave him time to pray, encourage the other prisoners – mostly Aristide supporters – and advocate for better jail conditions.

Like Jean-Juste, most of the political prisoners have not been formally charged with a crime. Haitian law says that arrests must be accompanied by a warrant and 48 hours after an arrest one must be formally charged by a judge. In the priest’s case, there was no warrant. One month after being locked in jail, he finally got to see a judge who found no wrongdoing. The judge ordered Jean-Juste freed, but he wasn’t allowed to walk out the prison gate for another three weeks.

Jean-Juste credits his eventual freedom to pressure from worldwide religious and humanitarian organizations, as well as a number of U.S. Congress members. Most of the other more-than-700 political prisoners are not so lucky. Jean-Juste points in particular to the case of Harold Severe, the former mayor of Port-au-Prince – just one among dozens of former government officials that languish today in Haitian jails.

“They were about to release him – because the judge ordered his release. At the exit door of the jail, they ordered him to come back.” Jean-Juste says the Minister of Justice interfered with the judicial process, ordering that Severe remain in prison.

The growing numbers of political prisoners was one of the subjects Jean-Juste said he’d discussed when he met with Aristide in South Africa. He said Aristide is worried about the arbitrary arrests and the overcrowded jails.

Sham elections, such as those in Iraq, are not the answer, Jean-Juste said.

Aristide said that if conditions for bona fide elections are respected, then Lavalas, his political party, would participate: those conditions include return to constitutional order; the physical return of Aristide to Haiti to serve out the remainder of his five-year term – about one more year; and the release of all political prisoners.

“He’s worried about the people,” Jean-Juste said. “He wants peace in Haiti; he wants to stop the repression. With all the conditions respected, we can go to elections.”

Why is Jean-Juste speaking out, risking re-arrest and even his life? (He has received death threats, according to the Margaret Trost, president of the What If? Foundation.) He says his goal is to bring democracy to Haiti, but his vision is broader – he encourages those in the U.S. to fight for democracy here.

“Freedom, democracy, Aristide – we must have all of this together. I read somewhere there are U.S. citizens who are so discouraged they want to go to Canada,” he said, addressing the audience directly: “Do not be discouraged at that point. We must stay here and fight back. It’s about time we the people in America take our power in our hands. Those of you who are discouraged, keep working – change will come.” ********* San Francisco bay View www.sfbayview.com/