Politics & Democracy

By Tania Valdemoro, Miami Herald Jan. 28, 2007 HAITIAN COMMUNITY Jean-Juste impatient to return to Haiti The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste — powerful Haitian activist and former political prisoner — longs to minister again in Haiti, but he is thwarted by political backlash and his own fragile health. Watching the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste relax on a folding chair at the storefront office of Veye Yo, a political group he founded in Little Haiti, it is hard to tell the priest was wracked by leukemia.Two months after finishing chemotherapy, his sallow complexion has cleared. He has gained weight. And he no longer uses a cane to walk. ”I’m very patient. I think my health will get better with time,” said Jean-Juste, who led a decades-long fight in South Florida to legalize Haitians in the United States. Leukemia was Jean-Juste’s ticket out of […]

January 17, 2007 Update: �Good news: the first bill of the year supporting justice in Haiti was filed in the U.S. Congress. Rep. Barbara Lee introduced H.R. 351, the TRUTH Act, which was referred to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. It now needs our help (see below). Thank you to everyone who wrote Edmond Mulet, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General in Haiti. We have not yet received a response from Mr. Mulet; please let us know if you have. On Friday, Cite Soleil residents returned a machine gun that UN peacekeepers had abandoned following a skirmish in December. Coming Attractions: �Democracy is celebrated in Haiti on February 7, the anniversary of the departure of Jean-Claude �Baby Doc� Duvalier (1986) and the inaugurations of Presidents Aristide (1991 and 2001) and Preval (1996). �Haiti�s Fondation Trente Septembre, joined by […]

Jan 15, 2007 Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune denounces the support given to  the machine of injustice that held him in prison for two years. Port-au-Prince, January 15, 2007 -(AHP)- The former Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, called Monday for solidarity in the pursuit against what he calls the political machine of injustice that held him in jail for 2 years and that continues to plague Haiti under the control of those who are swept away by their madness for power, he said. In his first statement of the new year, Neptune, who was incarcerated following accusations from organizations with close ties to the former regime, again thanked those who stood in solidarity with him throughout his struggle. He underlined that more than 5 months after his release, no decision has been made to bring to light the real motives for […]