Rep. Maxine Waters travels to Haiti to visit former Prime Minister Neptune

[seemslikeadream]

Washington, D.C. – Rep. Maxine Waters traveled to Haiti Monday to visit Haiti’s former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, who is being detained illegally in prison. She was met at the airport in Port-au-Prince by U.S. Embassy officials early this morning and immediately traveled to the National Penitentiary, where she met with Prime Minister Neptune, as well as former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert and former delegate Jacques Mathelier. The Congresswoman spent an hour with Prime Minister Neptune, discussing his health and the treatment he has received in prison, after which she returned to the airport and held a press conference.

“I urge the interim government of Haiti to set Prime Minister Neptune free and release all political prisoners in Haitian prisons,” said the Congresswoman. “The interim government’s repression of dissenters like Prime Minister Neptune must end immediately. The whole world is watching.”

Prime Minister Neptune has languished in prison in Haiti since June 27, 2004. His life has been endangered throughout his confinement. There were reports of a plot to assassinate him last November, a massacre in the National Penitentiary on Dec. 1, and a revolt in the National Penitentiary on Feb. 19. Prime Minister Neptune recently began a hunger strike and has vowed not to eat until the unjust, unsafe circumstances of his confinement are addressed.

“The conditions that I observed in the prison where Prime Minister Neptune is being held were deplorable,” reported the Congresswoman. “Prime Minister Neptune was weak and could only speak in a whispering voice. He insisted that he had been jailed without justification and that he had committed no crime. He has not been allowed to go before a judge to challenge his confinement as required under the constitution of Haiti, and he believes he has been targeted to be killed.”

more
http://www.sfbayview.com/030905/neptuneinprison030905.shtml

[Helga Scow Stern]

1. She is a force! n/t

[struggle4progress]

2. "Freedom." Registered trademark of The Ownership Society.

Patent pending.

[struggle4progress]

3. Congresswoman Waters and 15 other Members of Congress urge President Bush

... to take immediate action to free former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune from prison and save his life

<snip> Sincerely,

Maxine Waters
John Conyers
Barbara Lee
Kendrick Meek
Melvin L. Watt
Cynthia McKinney
Corrine Brown
Major Owens
William Delahunt
Jan Schakowsky
Dennis Kucinich
Maurice Hinchey
Edolphus Towns
Charles Rangel
Sheila Jackson-Lee
Donald Payne <snip>

http://www.haitiaction.net/News/MW/3_11_5.html

[Barkley]

4. I Love You Cong. Waters!

And Bush is urging Syria to leave Lebanon while we have troops in Iraq and support Mushariff in Pakistan, seek to undermine Chavez in VZ and completely changed the democratically elected gov't of Haiti.

Bush is a fraud.

Thanks Maxine for pointing what's going on in Haiti.

[chlamor]

5. Maxine dressed down that lyin' ass schoolboy Roger Noriega

She is the real deal. That list posted up above of the reps who support sum up what real reps of the people should aspire towards. No freakin' talking points and weasel words-THE TRUTH.

Maxine rocks as does Mo Hinchey.

[seemslikeadream]

6. THE SITUATION IN HAITI

WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 2004

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere,
Committee on International Relations,
Washington, DC.

Ms. Waters, it is your ballgame.

Ms. WATERS. Yes. Mr. Chairman and Members, first I want to thank you again for allowing us to be here, but to entertain any conversation that talks about our respect and support for democracy around the world calls into question the fact that we give Egypt billions of dollars. I do not think that is a democracy. On and on and on. I mean, I could just call the roll on it. So there are some contradictions here.

But I want to say to the panel, this business of the opposition, in this discussion when we talk about the opposition, we are talking about Mr. Andre Apaid, Jr., and the so-called Group of 184. How many people here know that Mr. Andre Apaid is an American citizen with an American passport? How many people know that the United States has never responded to the question: What the heck is an American citizen doing creating a coup d'etat in somebody else's country? Was that ever discussed in CARICOM?

Mr. MARVILLE. No.

Ms. WATERS. Have you ever heard it discussed by Mr. Noriega, anybody?

Well, how many people know that Mr. Apaid owns about 15 or 16 factories in Haiti? How many people know that? Can I hear you?

Mr. SACHS. Oh, yes.

Ms. WATERS. You know that?

How many people know that President Aristide, in the work that he was doing, was fighting for and insisting on an increase in wages for these poor workers in these factories? How many people know that? Can I hear you?

Mr. MARVILLE. Yes.

Mr. MAGUIRE. Yes.

Mr. SACHS. Confirmed.

Ms. WATERS. How many people know that Mr. Apaid has been accused of not paying his taxes, and that Mr. Aristide was insisting that he pay his taxes? Does anyone know that?

Mr. SACHS. Yes.

Ms. WATERS. You heard that before?

Mr. SACHS. Heard that.

Mr. MAGUIRE. Yes.

Ms. WATERS. How many people know that Mr. Aristide was not only fighting for increased wages in the factories, fighting for the business class to pay their taxes so that they could have some money for infrastructure; how many people knew that he was fighting against this indentured servitude of young girls who work in the homes of the privileged, who work from sunup to sundown taking care of babies, scrubbing floors in exchange for food and a place to sleep? Anybody understand anything about that?

Mr. CARNEY. Yes. I am familiar with that concept.

Mr. MAGUIRE. Mr. Aristide was an advocate of doing something about restavek, which is what you are talking about, this practice, but particularly strong before he was actually elected to office.

Ms. WATERS. Okay. So this priest from Cite Soleil, referred to as a priest of the slums, was fighting for increased wages, fighting to make the rich pay their taxes, and against these children being used basically as slaves and servants in these homes.

How many people know that the figure that the Chairman and others referred to today of $850 million did not go to the Aristide government?

Mr. MAGUIRE. In fact, I believe the United States cut off most bilateral aid probably by around 1998 or so; however, we continued to fund the Haitian Coast Guard, which is bilateral aid.

Ms. WATERS. All right. How many people understand that there is a difference between bilateral aid that goes directly to the government and the funding of nongovernment organizations? How many people understand that?

Mr. MAGUIRE. Understood.

Mr. SACHS. Congresswoman.

Ms. WATERS. Yes, please, respond quickly.

Mr. SACHS. Yes, very, very quickly. When I spoke with President Aristide in 2001, he laid out a very sensible, responsible economic vision and wanted to work with the Inter-American Development Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, and, thus, I was particularly shocked to come back to Washington to find a U.S.-imposed freeze on all of those institutions.

Ms. WATERS. How many people know that if you do not have that kind of aid, you have no money for the infrastructure, you have no money to clean up the water, no money for the police, no money for the fire? And while Mr. Aristide has been blamed for not doing anything about poverty, do you understand how he was strangled by the lack of aid, bilateral or otherwise? How many people understand that?

Mr. SACHS. Let me speak as a macroeconomist to say that it is even worse than that, because they drained him of foreign exchange reserves. As he continued to service the debts to the international institutions, the exchange rate collapsed, the inflation rose, and the economy collapsed, and that was the deliberate result of the strangulation of aid.

Ms. WATERS. Well, I hope we can get rid of some of the lies and misconceptions about all of this money that has gone to the government, when, in fact, it has not, and I do not want to hear that said anymore. So I just wanted to get that on the record.

more
http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/intlrel/hfa92343.000/hfa92343_0f.htm