Hundreds rush to see former Haitian political prisoner

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The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, remembered as the champion of Little Haiti, returned to Miami on Tuesday just eight days after being released from a Haitian jail cell. He has been accused by Haiti's interim government of inciting violence among loyalists of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide .  Jean-Juste, a Roman Catholic priest and former Miami community activist who demonstrated for the rights of Haitian refugees when he lived here, used the moment Tuesday to call for a truce and peace in his homeland, where his legal case is still pending.  Since pro-Aristide groups began stepping up demands on Sept. 30 for the former president's return to power, more than 100 Haitians have been killed and countless others have been wounded in political violence. Equally alarming, Jean-Juste and his supporters said, are the more than 700 Aristide supporters who are being held as political prisoners in deplorable conditions in Haiti's jail cells. "I am one set free," Jean-Juste said. "There are more than 700 more to go. We in Haiti and abroad, we want freedom for all the political prisoners." Jean-Juste, who elicited cheers from a crowded room when he declared that Aristide is still the president of Haiti until the end of his term on Feb. 7, 2006, blamed Haiti's current woes on what he called the country's "illegal de facto government." He accused Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's interim government of using United Nations peacekeeping troops "to kill, oppress and destroy the masses," and said they should declare they have made a mistake and go away. "The best way to solve the issue in Haiti is to let President Aristide back in," Jean-Juste said.
  • Pictured above: Women look at the burned-out frame of a taxi torched by supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Poupelard Avenue in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on December 2, 2004, a day after U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell  ended his visit to Haiti. The city was tense due to violence which marked Powell's visit.  [more]