[NYTr] Civil rights worker kidnapped in Haiti

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Workers World - Sep 6, 2007 issue (posted 9/3/07)
http://www.workers.org/2007/world/haiti-0906/


Civil rights worker kidnapped in Haiti

By G. Dunkel

Former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, forced out of Haiti by U.S.
agents, is still in exile. Supporters of Fanmi Lavalas (FL), his party,
are still in prison because of their political allegiance. Former
members of the Haitian Army, which was abolished by Aristide when he
was president, hold armed demonstrations demanding its
re-establishment. U.N. forces, called MINUSTAH, still occupy the
country under the direction of a Security Council dominated by the U.S.

And now Lovinsky Pierre Antoine has been kidnapped. An FL activist and
organizer of the September 30th Foundation, he has been a public
supporter of community groups in the impoverished but militant
neighborhood of Cité Soleil that oppose MINUSTAH. He was slated to run
as an FL candidate for a Senate seat in upcoming elections.

On Sunday, Aug. 12, Antoine drove some visiting members of a North
American civil rights group back to their rooms. He was supposed to
take them to Arcahaie the next day to meet René Civil, who has been in
detention for a number of months. Civil is a prominent youth leader,
closely connected to Aristide, and a frequent target of right-wing
propaganda.

When Antoine didn’t show up Monday morning, the North American group
called the police, who then found the rented car he was driving near
the airport with nothing but a T-shirt and a few CDs in it.

Kidnapping is so common that the police have a whole procedure they
follow for prominent individuals. But they didn’t for Lovinsky Pierre
Antoine. There were no searches of the known haunts of kidnapping
gangs, no public outcry. After a few days, when some North American
activists in the Haiti solidarity movement were suspecting a political
kidnapping, a demand for a $300,000 ransom surfaced. (Haïtí-Progrès,
Aug. 15 to Aug. 23)

Whether this kidnapping was done for profit or out of political
motives, or for both reasons, its political impact is the same. It will
strengthen the hold of reactionary forces in Haiti, already strong, and
make foreign solidarity groups much more cautious when they visit. It
is going to be riskier for Haitians to oppose the occupation of their
country and the re-establishment of the army and to support the popular
protests in poor communities.

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