Peace and Justice Lovers, Update on Father Jean Juste

by Margaret Trost		print version
		print version (graphics)

In this article, political prisoner and world-renowned advocate for the poor, Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste reports from his prison cell in Haiti.

Dr. Bill Quigley, Professor of Law at New Orleans' Loyola University Law School, also provides us with an update on the Haitian government's highly politicized incarceration of Fr. Jean-Juste, legendary advocate for the poor and potential Presidential candidate in Haiti's upcoming elections. Quigley is acting as Fr. Jean-Juste's attorney in Haiti.

"Fr. Jean-Juste, a powerful advocate of the poor, was arrested October 13, 2004, by masked heavily armed gunmen while feeding 600 children at his parish of St. Claire in Port au Prince," Quigley explains. "The unelected government of Haiti has accused him of providing support for the opposition. At one point they suggested that he provided 'guns and money for terrorists.'"

"But lawyers for Fr. Jean-Juste have finally secured the official government documents which showing the priest is only charged with 'trouble a la ordre public,' disturbing the peace. Under Haitian law, this is a third class crime, like a traffic ticket, punishable by a fine of up to fifteen gouds, or forty cents US."

"Yet, despite the minimal and artificial charge, Fr. Jean-Juste has not been released. Though Haitian law gives him the right to appear before a judge within 48 hours of arrest, no hearing is scheduled at all. Because he has been an outspoken critic of Haiti's unelected government, his lawyers have been advised that no judge will hear his case because it is 'too political.' Many other political prisoners like him sit in other jail cells in Haiti - others remain in hiding. Yet Fr. Jean-Juste's courageous Haitian lawyers continue to seek justice through the courts. No bond is available."

"Fr. Jean-Juste now sits in the Haitian national penitentiary with over 1000 others, over 90% waiting to see a judge."

Fr. Jean-Juste is a political prisoner of the neo-fascist Haitian regime imposed on the impoverished country by military force last year.

According to HaitiAction.net, a Haitian news website, "A U.S.-supported paramilitary force of former army officers and death squad members occupied northern Haiti in early 2004, and the U.S. military kidnapped Haiti's extremely popular President, Bertrand Aristide, and forced him into exile on February 29, 2004. The U.S., French, and Canadian governments installed an occupation government, led by Gérard Latortue, and the U.N. Security Council authorized a "peacekeeping" force, which entered Haiti in June, 2004."

The current Haitian government has incarcerated Fr. Jean-Juste, and Aristide's Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, two extremely popular potential presidential candidates who are running far ahead of the current President, in Haitian polls, as part of a highly organized campaign to steal the upcoming elections from politicians affiliated with Aristide's Lavalas Party.

"Since the coup, the death squads are out in force, and more than 1000 Lavalas activists and leaders have been imprisoned without charges," says HaitiAction.net.  "Thousands have been killed, and many thousands more have gone into hiding. In the last general election there were more than 11,000 voter registration centers, but in an August 2 report, the London-based Catholic Institute for International Relations wrote that this number '. . . has been slashed to less than 500 for the 2005 elections.'

"Abner Francois, director of the National Organization for the Defense of Youth (ORNADEJ), told Haitian media on August 23, that those living in traditionally pro-Lavalas districts of Haiti's capitol city Port-au-Prince, such as Solino, Bel-Air, Delmas 2, Sans-Fil, and Cité Soleil, are finding it impossible to register due to the absence of voter registration offices. Yet there are three centres in the upper class suburb of Petionville."

"In El Salvador and Vietnam the opposition parties 'were completely excluded from the ballot by law and/or the very real threats of murder,'" contends HaitiAction.net. "The same process is occurring in Haiti today, as USAID plots to eliminate Lavalas from the body politic, and the murderous police force hacks Lavalas supporters to death with machetes."


Letter from Bill Quigley
November 2005

Dear Friends:
 
I visit Haiti about once a month. I usually go by St. Clare’s parish on the outskirts of Port au Prince to see friends. I asked Margaret Trost to let me write you and tell you the great work being done by the What If? Foundation in Haiti.
 
St. Clare’s is on a hilltop about one mile from the nearest paved road. The hills are covered with thousands of simple buildings, mostly concrete block, some made of tin and other materials. Dusty and rutted roads wind among the houses. There are very few cars. People walk everywhere. Occasionally there is electricity, but usually not. You can always see women carrying big plastic containers of water up the hill to their homes. Smoke is in the air from people making charcoal and other people using charcoal to cook in their homes.
 
Often I end up visiting during one of the What If? Foundation’s meals that the people of the parish serve to five to seven hundred hungry children several times a week.In the back a number of women from the parish prepare huge vats of rice and beans in an impossibly hot kitchen. Others help serve and clean up.
 
The kids eat 30 or more to a table under a corrugated tin roof that shields them from the sun and the rain. There are always too many people to fit under the roof to eat at one time, so they eat in shifts with the bigger kids eating after the little ones. Bigger children often carry little children to the program and hold them on their lap or by their side and feed them.

I am always struck by how hungry these children actually are. They are given a metal spoon and a big metal bowl filed with a large helping of rice and beans and a piece of meat. The children wait for prayers. When they start eating, they dig into the bowls.  In minutes, the bowls are scraped totally clean. My kids have never been that hungry.
 
After being there numerous times, it is clear to me that these children and their families depend on the meals at St. Clare’s parish to live. Fr. Gerry Jean-Juste, the pastor, has told me several times that it is the only meal most of these children eat that day.
 
These children are our children. We help them eat or they will be hungry. It really is that simple. Please give to the What If? Foundation. Your donation will not go to administrative costs or salaries of bureaucrats – it goes for rice and beans for hundreds of hungry children several times a week. I have seen the kids numerous times. I support What If, and if you saw these kids, you would too. Please help them eat at St. Clare’s.
 
Peace,
 
Bill Quigley
Loyola University New Orleans School of Law


Letter from Fr. Jean-Juste, National Penitentiary Annex November 20, 2005

Dear Friends, Peace & Justice Lovers, Brothers & Sisters:
 
Allow me to reach you with this quick note. Since four months I have been in jail. As you know, I was arbitrarily arrested after a mob had maltreated me and also my volunteer lawyer, Bill Quigley. Arrest first and then look for a charge, depending on the weather. You may know the whole story by now.
 
I catch this opportunity (jailing) to keep advocating strongly for the respect of everyone’s human rights, particularly the political prisoners, mostly from the Fanmi Lavalas Party.
 
Meanwhile I have done my best with the help of so many of you in Haiti and abroad (mostly USA) to keep the St. Claire’s Church running. To joke, I use my remote control from jail and so far St. Claire’s is still in good shape, providing religious and social services to all. Thanks to Margaret Trost, President of the What If? Foundation, St Claire’s is feeding the neediest four days a week. Over 700 persons eat regularly. The kidnapping of our head cook, who was later released, shocked us. In spite of all difficulties, and persecution, we are holding on. I keep encouraging the brothers and sisters of St. Claire’s, Miami Veye-Yos, the lawyers, the human rights activists, & all to hold on. I smell the coming of victory. It will be huge, great, blessed.  Jail should not stop any human rights activists, any believers in God from exercising peaceful & religious resistance to succeed in our respective goals. In the 60’s we sang “We Shall Overcome” & it was a great inspiration. These days we should continue to sing our coming victory.
 
Freedom for the political prisoners, liberation for Haiti, back on the democratic rails is coming. Keep up the good work. Peace for the USA, Peace for the world must become a reality in 2006. For all of us we pray to God to assist us always & may his will be done, his kingdom come.
 
If you want to help more, in addition to everything you have been doing, you may send some assistance to Margaret Trost c/o What If? Foundation and you may send some financial assistance to the lawyers c/o Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, Brian Concannon.

Mersi, Merci, Gracias, Thanks!

In case I may not reach you before the Holiday Season, Happy Holiday and Happy New Year 2006.
 
Your Brother in the Struggle for Peace for Freedom for Love and No War.
 
(Signed) Gerard Jean-Juste

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Prison Photo of Fr. Jean-Juste from  Haiti Culture website was painterized using Adobe Photoshop.