Fwd: 5 Minutes to Save a Life: Letters to Haiti for Fr.Jean-Juste

I visited Fr. Jean-Juste in prison last week and his major concerns
were serving the kids in his parish
who need to be fed, and helping his fellow prisoners, too many of whom
are political and most of whom haven't seen a judge. Fr. Jean-Juste is
in solidarity with the poorest of the poor, hence he must continually
be demonized by the right-wing media machine in Haiti. Please do what
you can to spread the word about the campaign to free him.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: bill quigley <duprestars@yahoo.com>
Date: Wed, 3 Aug 2005 12:06:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [Lethaitilive] 5 Minutes to Save a Life: Letters to Haiti for
Fr.Jean-Juste
To: lethaitilive list <lethaitilive@lethaitilive.org>

Take 5 Minutes to Save a Life: Campaign to Deliver
Letters to US Ambassador in Haiti to Free Fr.
Jean-Juste [please take action and forward]

We are asking people and groups to send a letter (and
to ask your friends to send a letter too) asking that
the United States Embassy do everything in its power
to persuade the unelected Haitian government release
Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste from prison in Haiti. Bill
Quigley, a law professor in the US and a volunteer
lawyer for Fr. Jean-Juste with the Institute for
Justice and Democracy in Haiti, will hand-deliver all
letters to the US Embassy in Port au Prince. Please
take 5 minutes to do this, and ask others to do it as
well - it could save his life.

It can be a simple letter or a long letter, but
please write it, on your letterhead if possible, and
mail it to:

U. S. Ambassador to Haiti, James B. Foley
c/o and Professor Bill Quigley
Loyola University Law School
7214 St. Charles Avenue, Box 902
New Orleans, LA 70118

or send a fax with your name and address or on your
letterhead c/o Bill Quigley 504.861.5440

sample letter:

Dear Ambassador Foley:
Please have the US do everything in its power
for the immediate release of Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste.
Fr. Jean-Juste has been identified as a political
prisoner by Amnesty International and other Human
Rights groups. I know the US has power to influence
the unelected Haitian government - please use that
power to free Fr. Jean-Juste and to cease all
political persecution of him.
Thank you, name and address

Bill Quigley will hand-deliver these letters to the
Embassy in Port au Prince. If you include your email,
we will notify you when your letters are delivered and
send you other information about human rights in Haiti
if you would like.

Additional information about the assault on Fr.
Jean-Juste in church in Haiti and his arrest and his
status as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty
International can be found at http://www.ijdh.org and
Amnesty report designating him as POC:
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0726-01.htm
Human Rights First Campaign to free JJ:
http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/Jean_Juste/explanation?
Common Dreams article about assault at church and
arrest:
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0722-08.htm

Peace, Bill Quigley

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good piece on elections in Haiti

Posted on Sat, Jul. 23, 2005

An election without votersBY SUE ASHDOWN and OLIVIA BURLINGAME GOUMBRIsashdown@hotmail.com

Less than four months before the start of Haiti's elections, it is getting hard to conceal the signs of an impending fiasco. But Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council (known by its French acronym CEP) and the U.N. Peacekeeping Mission in Haiti are trying anyway.
Faced with out-of-control violence and the impossibility of registering 4.5 million Haitians by Aug. 13 (60 days before the first election on Oct. 13), the two institutions keep issuing upbeat but unsubstantiated statements about the electoral process.
By the end of May, out of 436 planned registration offices, the Organization of American States admitted that only 14 had opened. (For Haiti's 2000 elections, the CEP opened more than 2,000 registration centers.)

By early June, less than 2 percent of eligible voters had registered, so the CEP and the U.N. escalated their public relations. Every few days, one or the other would announce the opening of new voter registration centers and the registration of additional Haitian voters with numbers almost impossible to verify in the face of the skyrocketing violence in the country.
Desperate for change

As a tidal wave of kidnappings struck Haiti, leading to the evacuation of the Peace Corps and non-essential personnel from the U.S. Embassy, the U.N. enthusiastically reported that voter registration centers in Haiti had doubled. Several days later the CEP reported that the number of centers had quadrupled again. But by June 21, the registration rate was a still-insignificant 3.5 percent.

One might think that the average Haitian voter -- too poor to make a kidnapping target and desperate for change -- would be lining up to be fingerprinted and photographed in return for the right to vote. But he or she would need to get out of the neighborhood first. There are no registration centers in the poor neighborhoods and no plans to open any either.
Even getting out of the house can be a dangerous ordeal in the poor neighborhoods of the capitol, Port-au-Prince. Police and paramilitary groups, often backed by U.N. troops, routinely raid these areas, considered bastions of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, purposely killing or arresting suspected dissidents and killing or maiming bystanders as collateral damage. When the political violence subsides, gangs filling the void left by the police's conversion to a political force take over, imposing economic terror.

Meaningful participation in election activities is impossible. Aristide's Lavalas movement, which has won every fair election in Haiti's history by a landslide, refuses to join the elections unless the attacks against it stop. This includes freeing the hundreds of political prisoners in Haitian jails, from grassroots activists to Haiti's last constitutional prime minister, Yvon Neptune. It means ending the routine police practice of managing legal, nonviolent demonstrations by shooting at them.

Unable to control the country

The response of the countries that pushed Aristide out of Haiti to exile in Africa 16 months ago is to hope for the best. They will support some tinkering -- more guns for the Haitian police, a few more U.N. soldiers -- but will not face up to the fact that Haiti's interim government is unable to control the country and unwilling to establish the conditions necessary for free and fair elections.

The U.S. government appears willing to accept a deeply flawed election with low turnout, no Lavalas participation and no effective campaigning. That will provide a window of opportunity for the opposition, which has managed to attract millions of U.S.-taxpayer dollars but few Haitian votes over the past decade. It will also allow the Bush Administration to say that its regime change strategy in Haiti bore fruit. The one thing it will not do, is to make life more free, democratic or in any way better for the millions of poor Haitians who have suffered for too long from too many undemocratic governments.

Sue Ashdown is a member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom in Washington, D.C., and Olivia Burlingame Goumbri is executive director of the Ecumenical Program On Central America & the Caribbean.
© 2005 Herald.com and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.http://www.miami.com