(CARICOM Secretariat, Georgetown, Guyana) The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) is deeply concerned by the deteriorating health and worrisome judicial situation which have developed with regard to Mr. Yvon Neptune, the former constitutional Prime Minister of Haiti. On 27 June 2004, Mr. Neptune voluntarily turned himself in following the issue of an arrest warrant. Mr. Neptune is yet to be brought to trial. Not even the first step in prosecuting him has been fulfilled. Haiti's constitution requires that a judge confirm a detention within 48 hours. Some ten months after his detention this has not yet happened. Mr. Neptune is but one of a number of Lavalas leaders and activists being held in prolonged preventive detention.
The Caribbean Community reiterates the position articulated following the Inter-Sessional Meeting of the Conference of Heads on 16-17 February 2005, that the indefinite detention of Lavalas leaders and activists, of which Mr. Neptune is the most glaring example, can only be construed as arbitrary detention on the basis of political affiliation. These persons must either be charged and brought before the courts or released forthwith.
In protest over his prolonged detention, Mr. Neptune has once again gone on a hunger strike, and so has Mr. Jocelerme Privert, the former Minister of the Interior. Mr. Neptune's health is said to have gravely deteriorated. He has, however, refused the plan of the Interim Administration to temporarily remove him from Haiti for medical treatment unless the unlawful detention is ended.
The consequences of the inordinate delay in the judicial processing of Mr. Neptune and the inability of the Interim Administration of Haiti to ensure that due process be respected have come to an unsatisfactory and potentially tragic stage in which the responsibility of the Interim Administration is fully engaged. CARICOM calls upon the Interim Administration to immediately release Mr. Neptune since no formal charges have been preferred against him after such a long period of incarceration and to provide him with appropriate medical treatment. All others being arbitrarily held should be similarly released.
