Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune says he is a political prisoner of the current government which he accuses of wishing to destroy Fanmi Lavalas

AHP News, 24 August 2004, 12:15 PM

Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune says he is a political prisoner of the current government which he accuses of wishing to destroy Fanmi Lavalas

Port-au-Prince, August 24, 2004 (AHP)- Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune indicated Tuesday that he considers himself to be a political prisoner of the current government whose members and supporters were actors or accomplices in a modern coup d'Etat which put a constitutionally elected president on notice that he had to either resign or be killed.

In a document that has reached AHP, Yvon Neptune communicated his decision not to collaborate with any hearing based on accusations of a political nature or with political implications or connotations and that is conducted in the spirit of political justice of the moment.

The former Prime Minister, who turned himself in to the police following accusations made by NCHR that he was involved in an alleged massacre at La Scierie, spoke out against the conduct of the interim government which has revealed itself to be actively and viscerally anti-Lavalas in its plans, its rhetoric and its practices.

The former Prime Minister in the government of President Aristide recalled that during more than three years of negotiations aimed at safeguarding the fundamental achievements of Haiti's democracy and assuring progress in the process of change for which the Haitian Constitution is an essential building block, the adversaries of Fanmi Lavalas chose, he said, to reject every political compromise and decided to resort to armed violence to achieve their objective.

According to him, the adversaries of the former government wished to interrupt constitutional government at any price, ruin the process of the institutionalization of democracy, neutralize, sap, and infiltrate with the goal of eliminating Fanmi Lavalas, the majority political organization.

The current government, supported by its partners of all sorts, has committed itself to a campaign of systematic political denigration of the political organization, arrests of its leaders, members and supporters on the basis of simple fallacious allegations coming from political adversaries, he charged.

He added that the enemies of Fanmi Lavalas also engaged in acts of physical and psychological aggression as well as implicit or explicit exclusion of Fanmi Lavalas from all the affairs of the State.

According to Mr. Neptune, one of the most terrifying components of the plans for the killing of democracy by this self-proclaimed techno-democratic government is the fact that it cloaks itself in judicial garb in its attempt to camouflage the infernal machine launched tirelessly, he said, against Fanmi Lavalas.

The money from truants, smugglers, traffickers and speculators of all sorts, and the political interests of some affluent members of the government have constantly rigged the scales of justice, asserted Yvon Neptune.

The former Prime Minister declared himself ready to contribute freely toward the interests of the Haitian people, who persevere, he said, in their quest for progress and peace, by continuing to devote themselves at great risk and sacrifice to the slow and painstaking process of re-founding Haiti on the basis of justice.

He denounced the de facto government which, in collusion with economic or political actors whose democratic credentials are at the very least dubious, has seized control of the judicial system, which has been in decay for a long time with the objective of bringing about the disappearance of Fanmi Lavalas from the political landscape and guaranteeing the privileged interests for networks of wheeler dealers and political types to the detriment of the life and durable progress of the Haitian nation.