AHP refers to Neptune letter, court decision. Haiti's "Ambassador" to Canada - ZNET

[Jens Iverson]

Hello,

Please find below two articles, one already posted to the HHP list,
regarding Neptune and the dubiously appointed Haitian Ambassador to Canada's
stated ignorance regarding Neptune.

Regards,

Jens Iverson


FORMER PRIME MINISTER YVON NEPTUNE AFFIRMS THAT HE HAS BEEN WITHOUT A LAWYER
SINCE 25 OCTOBER 2004 AND DENOUNCES MANEUVERS HE SAYS ARE INTENDED TO DROWN
HIM IN A POLITICAL SWAMP

Port-au-Prince, July 6, 2005 (AHP)- Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune
criticized on Wednesday the attitude of a lawyer from the Group of 184 named
Gervais Charles, whom he accuses of having mentioned his name on June 14th
during a radio broadcast in Port-au-Prince in connection with a lawyer who
Mr. Charles claimed was acting on behalf of Mr. Neptune before a court in
Saint-Marc.

In a letter written "to whom it may concern" and sent to the media, Mr.
Neptune said that he finally decided to react after the pernicious tale
resurfaced on Tuesday July 5 over the airwaves of another radio station in
the form of a news report stating that a decision had been taken by that
court in connection with the so-called intervention of the lawyer reportedly
acting on Mr. Neptune's behalf.

The former LAVALAS leader challenged this lawyer and the interim authorities
to submit to the general public some authentic documents establishing that
any type of relationship at all exists between this lawyer and himself (Yvon
Neptune). Mr. Neptune pointed out that as of October 25, 2004 he had
dismissed attorneys Ephésien Joissaint, Myrbel Jean Baptiste, Irvelt Louis
and Edwin Coq, whom he initially contacted after his illegal and arbitrary
arrest and detention.

Mr. Neptune said that ever since he dismissed these lawyers, he has chosen
to face the ordeal as a political prisoner without an attorney representing
him.

"Why would one need lawyers when one is in the grips of a politically
motivated justice machine", said Mr. Neptune. He deplored that the
government on two separate occasions dragged him from his prison cell to
transport him to Saint-Marc without even furnishing a court order to do so.

It is shameful and pitiful that the de facto government, which stubbornly
persists in thrashing about in a pool of the most flagrant injustice, he
said, should exhibit such an excess of incapacity to demonstrate even a
minimum of intelligence.

Incarcerated for more than a year on grounds that remain unclear, Mr.
Neptune declared that the whole thing is a heap of deadly shards of broken
glass tossed, he said, in the swampy and stinking political pool that the de
facto government and its henchmen are passionately filling up, in order to
drown him.


>
> From: Jean Saint-Vil <jafri...@hotmail.com>
>
>
> Haiti's 'Ambassador' to Canada by Jean Saint-Vil
> http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=55&ItemID=8265
>
> "As it now stands, the Constitution is somewhat...uh! An exception was
> made..."
>
> Robert Hans Tippenhauer trying to rationalize his illegal nomination as
> "Ambassador" of Haiti to Canada, June 29, 2005
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------
> It happened quick and in the very heart of Canada's capital. Early
> this morning of June 29, 2005 when colleague Kevin Skerrett and I
> arrived to cover the story, for a brief moment, we worried that other
> news media had somehow scooped our insider's information. Cameras and
> various recording materials left little standing room for the many
> journalists crowded in the waiting room at Rideau Hall.
>
> Adding panache to the situation, a dedicated staffer quietly enters the
> waiting room and hushes that Governor General Adrienne Clarkson and the
> first of two distinguished guests are about to meet. They will allow us
> to record the brief encounter but no questions are allowed. So, we
> complied.
>
> Within a matter of minutes, Robert Hans Tippenhauer enters the room and
> hands over the envelope to Mrs. Clarkson. Those in attendance barely
> noticed when, a visibly nervous Tippenhauer drying his hands on his
> suit, referred to "celui qui me pré-décédait" (the one who has
> "pre-deceased" me!). "Uh ! Mon prédécesseur!"(the one who
> preceded me), he quickly corrected, before proceeding to tell the
> Governor General about his high school days spent in the province of
> Québec. Aside from this suggestive Freudian slip, Tippenhauer did
> relatively well. He and Mrs. Clakrson exchanged a few words, smiled and
> posed happily for the cameras and - the deed was done. Officially, the
> Dominion of Canada and its Queen had accepted the credentials of the
> new "Ambassador" of Haiti to Canada.
>
> Knowing that there were skeletons in Tippenhauer's closet, I
> reiterated to the friendly Rideau Hall staffer the official request to
> interview the new "Ambassador". This shouldn't be difficult to obtain
> considering, as we had by then realised, all the other media present
> came to cover the new U.S. Ambassador who was next to present his
> credentials to Mrs. Clarkson. After an hour's wait, Kevin and I were
> told that Mr. Tippenhauer declined our request. Reason? - too busy -
> no can do, no time! So, we decided to take our time and patiently
> waited by the entry along with the other reporters.
>
> Contrary to schedule, Wilkins, the new U.S. Ambassador, was the first
> to come out. He took all sorts of questions, including one which he
> dodged about his impression on Canada's performance in Haiti. Then,
> came « Ambassador » Tippenhauer, the former Chair of the
> Canadian-Haitian Chamber of Commerce, of whom Vancouver-based
> journalist Anthony Fenton wrote: "Should the Canadian government
> accept Tippenhauer's credentials, it will mark Canada's clearest
> official alignment with Haiti's right-wing elites". With his May 16,
> 2005 ZNET article titled "The Canadian Corporate/State Nexus In
> Haiti", Fenton was the first journalist to break news of
> Tippenhauer's nomination. A revelation that shocked many, especially
> members of Canada's Haitian community, who had fresh in mind how,
> following the Feb. 29, 2004 coup that toppled the democratically
> elected President of Haiti, Tippenhauer played a key part in a series
> of diplomatic blunders that led to Haiti's post-coup regime's total
> ostracism by its Caribbean neighbours. Tippenhauer, a Port-au-Prince
> based businessman of German extraction who was also playing the role of
> Jamaica's honorary consul in Haiti at the time, had decided on Mar. 15,
> 2004 to raucously announce his resignation from that honorary position.
> This, in protest to the decision by the Jamaican government to
> temporarily host exiled former President Jean Bertrand Aristide.
> Haitians have not forgotten this recent episode where it effectively
> took a brazen rescue mission lead by Jamaica's Prime Minister
> Percival Patterson and Black American author and human rights activist
> Randall Robinson to facilitate Aristide's return to this hemisphere
> and reunification with his two young daughters. The children were not
> in Haiti the night of the coup, when U.S. Marines surrounded the
> president's residence and took him and his wife in an unmarked white
> plane to the Central African Republic where they knew no one.
>
> So, as Robert Hans Tippenhauer made his way to the exit, I scrambled to
> decide what to ask him first. Should I ask him why activists in
> Montreal keep accusing Canada's Foreign Minister, Pierre Pettigrew,
> of aiding criminals in Haiti? Should I ask him why the non-elected
> government that he represents is often characterized by Haitians
> everywhere as being an illegal, brutal puppet regime, imposed on them
> by the U.S., France and Canada? Should I ask him why the Caribbean
> Community, Venezuela, the 53 nations of the African Union, Nelson
> Mandela's African National Congress, prominent Congressmen and
> Congresswomen from the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus... all refuse to
> recognize his regime in Haiti? Should I ask him to comment on the fact
> that countless activists from PEI to Victoria, B.C. have accused Canada
> of participating in a racist coup that brought to power through violent
> means a group of Haitians who happen to be, like him, of European
> origin?
>
> So, I began:
>
> Q: Your nomination was not ratified by the Haitian Senate. Some contend
> it is illegal...?
>
> Tippenhauer: Well, everyone is entitled to his own opinion which I do
> respect. However, there has been an accommodation with the «
> international community » to provide our country with an interim
> government that will, indeed, permit us to achieve credible and honest
> elections and make it possible to hand power on February 7th to a
> President who would have been elected by the Haitian People.
>
> Q: Therefore, in the interim, during the transitional period, the
> Haitian constitution is not being followed because it stipulates, for
> instance, that « the President of the Republic, following approval by
> the Senate, names ambassadors»?
>
> Tippenhauer: But, this is an exceptional case because, we do not have a
> government - at that time. We did not have an elected government.
> It's only now, you know that and we are doing all that is possible
> for us to do in order to have a government and precisely where the
> president will swear in on February 7, 2006. And, we are working
> towards that.
>
> I was not sure whether the "Ambassador" had just acknowledged
> representing a non-existent government. But, knowing that even in
> Washington, D.C., the regime's representative, Mr. Raymond Joseph,
> bears the title of Chargé d'Affaires, I pursued...
>
> Q: But, the normal procedure would have been to name a « Chargé
> d'Affaires » since you are not constitutional...?
>
> Tippenhauer: No! You are the one who says that I am not constitutional.
>
> Q: But, it's the Constitution that...?
> (showing him a copy with the relevant section highlighted in yellow)
>
> Tippenhauer: As it now stands, the Constitution is somewhat...uh! An
> exception was made because, as I have told you and am repeating it,
> there has been an international consensus, you know, to go over this
> difficult and fragile transition that we are currently subject to -
> that the country is subjected to. And, precisely, to allow the country
> to have a president who is elected and who will be elected - an elected
> government...
>
> "A legitimate one !", I tried to interject.
>
> Tippenhauer:... coming from elections, you know, that will take
> place...uh! at the end of this year.
>
> Thus, Robert Hans Tippenhauer, who was fraudulently named Ambassadeur
> Plenipotentiaire de la République d'Haiti on June 29, 2005,
> confirmed that the Constitution of the Republic he represents has
> effectively been put on hold. He came close to saying it in so many
> words. But, even more important than his statements, it is
> Tippenhauer's actions that have the most dire consequences for
> millions of people.
>
> My colleague Kevin Skerrett probing Tippenhauer's views on the
> well-documented dreadful Human Rights situation in post-coup Haiti,
> asked him about the country's most recognizable of over 1000
> political prisoners:
>
> Q: Mr. Tippenhauer, former Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune is still
> in jail and his health situation is quite serious and we hear that no
> evidence has been presented against him. What can you tell us about his
> situation?
>
> Tippenhauer: Well, uh! As far as his situation, he is at the
> disposition of Haitian justice which, precisely, by the separation of
> the justice from the legislative and ... the executive, Haitian justice
> is independent. And, he is in the hands of Haitian justice.
>
> Q : But, what is your reaction to the condemnation by Amnesty
> International and by Juan Gabriel Valdes, chief of MINUSTAH (U.N.
> Mission in Haiti), on Mr. Neptune's situation? Your reaction?
>
> Tippenhauer: And, what is that reaction?
>
> Q : Mr. Valdes recently declared that Mr. Neptune's situation is a
> violation of his rights. And, this is consistent with comments made by
> Mr. Fagart as well as several others.
>
> Tippenhauer: I am totally ignorant of this declaration. Therefore, I
> cannot comment on it.
>
> Such were the reflections of the man officially confirmed this June 29,
> 2005, "Ambassador of the Republic of Haiti" by Her Majesty the
> Queen of Canada.
>
> Along with all the other unlawfully appointed leaders of Haiti,
> Tippenhauer is now fully habilitated to take state-binding decisions,
> including signing multi million contracts, on behalf of an impoverished
> people that never had chosen him to be their representative. Not
> surprisingly, among the beneficiaries of lucrative contracts with
> Haiti's illegal regime are Canadian companies: SNC-Lavalin and Gildan
> Active Wear.
>
> If the corporate incentives to lend a blind eye to the illegal nature
> of this regime are plain enough, what might be the mid-to-long term
> impact of Prime Minister Martin's pro-coup Haiti policy on Canada's
> image in the Caribbean? Can our Department of Foreign Affairs truly
> pretend not to have realized the evident flaws in the "credentials"
> presented by Mr. Tippenhauer?
>
> In a sensitive area like foreign affairs is it not important to be
> mindful of perceptions? If Haitian-Canadians taking part in recent
> Ottawa call-in shows are any indication, the response of the Haitian
> community to the nomination of Tippenhauer is unequivocal: "He does
> not represent us", "He is no ambassador", "His nomination is
> illegal". Such reactions were rather predictable since it is no
> secret that the Tippenhauer family counts some of the most prominent
> supporters of the coup that toppled Haiti's constitutional government
> in 2004. In addition to Robert Hans Tippenhauer's own reactionary
> credentials, his nephew, also named Hans Tippenhauer, a former member
> of the Washington establishment's Center for Strategic and
> International Studies (CSIS) and a sweat-shop magnate is a key member
> of the E.U. and USAID- funded Group of 184 opposition front. He is
> credited to be the first to have assigned the term "freedom
> fighters" to the murderous paramilitaries, some of whom are convicted
> criminals, who paved the way to the coup. Tippenhauer's Group 184 is
> prominently led by two other white businessmen operating sweatshops in
> Haiti, Charles Henri Baker and the American Andre Apaid.
>
> Considering all these facts, accepting Tippenhauer's credentials, not
> only mark Canada's official alignment with Haiti's right-wing elites,
> it also gives credence to the disturbing allegations of an insidiously
> racist dimension to the 2004 overthrow of Haiti's elected government.
>
> Jafrikayiti
>
> «Depi nan Ginen bon nèg ap ede nèg!»
>
> http://www.jafrikayiti.com
>
>
>

Richard A. Boswell
Professor of Law
U.C. Hastings
200 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA 94102
tel: 415 565-4633
fax 415 565-4865
bosw...@pacbell.net or bosw...@uchastings.edu


------ End of Forwarded Message