A first look at Port au Prince

This morning, prior to leaving the city for the countryside, we went to Haiti’s cathedral to pay our respects at the funderal mass of a respected Catholic father who recently passed away. Father Ednea Devaloin was a colleague of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a proponent of the liberation theology movement in the CAtholic Church. Several thousand people attended the service.

The streets of Port au Prince are a swirl of human activity. The main streets are paved and filled with the “tap tap’ vehicles that serve as public transport for most ordinary people and pedestrians making their way along the narrow sidewalks. Most tap taps are converted pick up trucks, and fares cost 20 cents or so. Secondary streets are unpaved and very rough.

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Day One in Haiti

Port au Prince! We flew in this afternoon from Miami on one of the several daily flights of American Airlines. A full flight, and I’m guessing that many of the Haitian passengers were arriving for summer visits from the U.S. and Canada.

Port au Prince is on the coast and it lies on a plain surrounded by impressive mountains. We got a good view of much of the Haitian coastline as we flew in.

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Murdering the poor: Canadian tax dollars at work

by Isabel MacDonald. Originally posted at rabble.ca.

Imagine if the U.S. were to hold elections after the Republican Party had rounded up Senator John Kerry and other prominent Democrats and thrown them in jail without charges, while waging a campaign of violence and political assassinations in all “blue states.” To hold Haitian elections under present conditions would be comparable to this, according to one of the panelists at the launch of the Toronto Haiti Action Committee (THAC).

For the THAC launch event on August 4, prominent Haiti solidarity activists addressed a crowd of 80 people as Toronto joined the ranks of other Canadian cities (Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Halifax) that are home to active groups calling for an end to the repression being carried out in Haiti by an illegitimate Canadian-backed government.
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Haiti: Arbitrary arrest/prisoner of conscience: Gérard Jean-Juste

PUBLIC AI Index: AMR 36/008/2005
UA 195/05 Arbitrary arrest/prisoner of conscience 25 July 2005

HAITI Gérard Jean-Juste (m), aged 59, Catholic priest

Catholic priest Gérard Jean-Juste was taken into custody at a police station “for his own protection” on 21 July, after he was assaulted, but while he was at the police station he was accused of murder. He was abroad at the time of the murder of which he has been accused, but he is a prominent opponent of the government. Amnesty International considers him a prisoner of conscience, detained solely because he has peacefully exercised his right to freedom of expression. He risks spending a long time in custody awaiting trial on apparently trumped-up charges.

Rev. Jean-Juste has been an outspoken supporter of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and critic of the present government, in his sermons and in radio broadcasts. On 21 July he attended the funeral of journalist Jacques Roche, at a church in the Pétionville suburb of the capital, Port-au-Prince. He was assaulted and threatened by a mob outside the church, who said he was one of those responsible for the violence that is sweeping the capital. He was taken to Pétionville police station by officers from the Haitian police and the UN civilian police force, CIVPOL. None of his attackers is known to have been detained.

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