This Week in Haiti 20:13 6/12/2002 Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit "This Week in Haiti" is the English section of HAITI PROGRES newsweekly. For the complete edition with other news in French and Creole, please contact the paper at (tel) 718-434-8100, (fax) 718-434-5551 or e-mail at . Also visit our website at . HAITI PROGRES "Le journal qui offre une alternative" * THIS WEEK IN HAITI * June 12 - 18, 2002 Vol. 20, No. 13 THE GUACIMAL AFFAIR: JOURNALISTS RELEASED BUT NINE OTHERS LANGUISH, UNCHARGED, IN JAIL On Jun. 8, the Haitian government released journalists Darwin St. Julien of Haoti Progrhs and Allan Deshommes of Radio Atlantique, thirteen days after they were severely beaten and illegally arrested on May 27 while covering a demonstration in Guacimal near St. Raphael (see Haoti Progrhs, Vol. 20, No. 11, 5/29/2002). They were never charged with any crime. Upon release, the two were immediately rushed to receive specialized medical care, which was pointedly denied them during their two weeks in detention. St. Julien was struck with a machete in his right eye, from which he still cannot see and which he might lose. He also suffers from severe headaches. Deshommes, who received head injuries, is also being closely monitored. The two journalists were beaten by armed men, led by local authorities and the "watchmen" of big landowning families -- the Ziphirs and Novellas -- who have denied peasants the right to farm on 365 carreaux of land which they have cultivated for generations. The peasants were demonstrating on May 27 to plant on the fallow land when they were attacked. Nine people arrested during the demonstration remain in prison in the capital without charges, in flagrant violation of the Constitution which specifies that detainees be charged within 48 hours. Six are peasants, including two elderly men and two elderly women, members of the union Batay Ouvriyh (Workers Struggle). The other three prisoners are drivers who brought the unionist in pick-ups to take part in the peasants' demonstration. All were arrested on May 27 and transported by helicopter on May 29 to the National Penitentiary in Port-au-Prince. The two women are being held in Fort National (see Haoti Progrhs, Vol. 20, No. 12, 6/5/2002). The prisoners are enduring abominable conditions, lack clothes and shoes, and need medical attention. There is no medicine in the dispensary at the National Penitentiary. One peasant, Urbain Gargon, is in danger of losing his leg. Two peasants from St. Michel d'Attalaye -- Francilien Exilien and Ipharhs Guerrier -- were killed by the big landowners' goons on May 27 and buried on the spot. Authorities in St. Raphael, allied with the big landowners (known in Haiti as grandons), have issued warrants to arrest 19 other demonstrators, all of whom have fled the area or gone into hiding. During a Jun. 6 sit-in in Cap Haotien protesting the arrests, radio journalist Delima Sivhre said that his cousin, St. Raphael's mayor Adonija Sivhre, told him not to visit the town because there was going to be "more trouble." Other reliable sources claim that the grandon's thugs -- many of whom are "dissidents" who left the Batay Ouvriyh union -- are being paid about $30 daily (a princely sum in Haiti) since the May 27 confrontation to remain mobilized against the return of the unionized peasants. A massive wave of indignation from national and international journalist and human rights groups forced the Haitian government, controlled by the Lavalas Family party of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, to release the journalists. On Jun. 10, the Association of Haitian Journalists (AJH), which played an instrumental role in bringing pressure to bear on the government for the journalists' release, gave a press conference to lay out its response to the arrests. "We will take legal steps to make sure that these two journalists are compensated for the abuse they endured, for their illegal arrest, their illegal detention, the medical care that was denied, the poor treatment they received, as well as suing the people who beat them," said Guyler C. Delva, the AJH general secretary. "We are also going to take measures with our lawyer to file suit against the authorities who were in complicity in this illegal arrest." "We also affirm that the government is responsible for the fact that Darwin St. Julien risks losing his eye because he was not examined by a specialist," Delva continued. "Once incarcerated in the National Penitentiary, they preferred to isolate him from his family instead of allowing him to be seen by a doctor." In the press conference, the two journalists described how they were accosted by the grandons' thugs. "While we were interviewing some demonstrators, some individuals, headed by a "watchman" and some local authorities, attacked us," St. Julien recounted. When arrested later, the police fired their guns near the journalists' ears, he said. Deshommes described the terrible conditions in which they were held in the National Penitentiary. "They treated us very badly," he said, "as if we were assailants, or terrorists, all the names the authorities flung at us. They fed us like dogs, just throwing the food down and saying 'take it.'" The journalists slept on the prison's slimy fetid cement floors, since they could not obtain one of the rare cots fought over by prisoners. In a Jun. 10 press release, Haoti Progrhs thanked the AJH and other rights groups which fought for the journalists' release, but warned that the battle is not over. "Haoti Progrhs asks the press and its association to remain mobilized: the release of the journalists should not make us let our guard down," Maude Leblanc, Haoti Progrhs' co-director, wrote. "There are other people arrested during the demonstration in Guacimal -- peasants, members of Batay Ouvriyh -- who are still in jail illegally. Others are being persecuted and have been forced into hiding while the group close to the power is burning down their houses. The press has the role to denounce arbitrary acts, and intolerance is gaining ground in the country more and more." In a release the next day, Evariste Wilson of the National Popular Party (PPN) echoed this position. "The Lavalas Family government is trying to turn the liberation of the two journalists into a diversion so that it can black-out attention on the incident in Guacimal," he said. "They want to cover up the truth of what really happened on Monday, May 27." Wilson denounced that the prisoners still being held include four elderly peasants. "Are these the people the Lavalas Family government wants to pretend are terrorists?" he asked. The PPN called for the liberation of the remaining nine prisoners, reparations for the two journalists, and some response from a delegation of five deputies, which traveled to the area on Jun. 5 but has made no statement. "Governmental bodies like the INARA (Agricultural Institute) should take up the matter of the 365 carreaux of land in Guacimal," the PPN concluded. "Because the local authorities in St. Raphael, particularly Mayor Adonija Sevhre and various other authorities in the Northern Department, are in bed with Nonce Ziphir, who is a big landowner who has all the reason in the world to continue to create incidents which could be even more serious in St. Raphael." Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, NY, Haitians gathered on Jun. 8 to listen to Paul Philome, a Haiti-based militant of Batay Ouvriyh, and Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the PPN, condemn the Haitian government's support of rampaging big landowners in St. Raphael. Following the meeting, a demonstration was called for Thursday, Jun. 13 from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. in front of the Haitian Consulate in Manhattan (271 Madison Avenue) to demand the immediate release of the nine Batay Ouvriyh prisoners. For more information on the Jun. 13 demonstration, call the Global Sweatshop Coalition at (212) 947-7744. All articles copyrighted Haiti Progres, Inc. REPRINTS ENCOURAGED. 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