Haiti: Midnight Raid in by U.S. Troops Provokes Outrage

The attack has shocked and incensed Haitians, not only in Haiti, but throughout its diaspora, where Auguste, 60, was a well-known anti-dictatorship singer before returning to Haiti in 1994 to become a popular leader in President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Family party.

“They went from room to room throwing grenades,” explained Wilfrid “Tido” Lavaud, So Anne’s guitarist and long-time companion. “They shot open all the doors they passed through. They terrorized the entire neighborhood.”

Two of Lavaud’s daughters, Winifred, 25, and Linedossa, 13, escaped over a wall into the yard of a neighbor with Auguste’s younger brother, Andrél Elie. Linedossa seriously cut her leg in the escape.

Along with So Anne and Tido, U.S. Marines arrested nine other household members including Auguste’s sister, Raymonde Altagrace, 68, and son Ralph Samedi and his wife Beatrice Fortuné. The Marines also arrested Auguste’s 5-year-old granddaughter, Shameer Samedi, and two grandsons, Lucmar and Louvaïmar Auguste, aged 15 and 12. Also arrested was Kelande Philippe, 12, Auguste’s adopted son. A cook and driver were also detained.

The arrests were made in violation of the Haitian Constitution, which says that all arrests should be made between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. except when a crime is being committed.

All remained handcuffed for six hours during questioning, Tido reports. Then they were released, without explanation, except for So Anne. She was supposed to be charged on May 11, but the judge never showed up. She is being held in the National Penitentiary.

“It seems they want to charge her as the person responsible for the events of Dec. 5 at the University of Haiti,” Tido said. That was the date when popular organizations and students skirmished, and the school’s rector had his knees broken.

Auguste’s family has been in touch with Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) and intend to pursue legal action.

U.S. interrogators, who questioned all the detainees separately, were also concerned that Auguste had contact with Haitian Muslims who worship at a mosque less than a block from her home on Delmas 16 in Port-au-Prince, Tido said. “The interrogators thought that she was having meetings with them to hatch a plot to attack U.S. troops,” he said. “So they thought So Anne was a threat to their security.”

The U.S. interrogators also asked the detained if they had spoken by phone with President Aristide, now exiled in Jamaica, and if he was giving them directives.

Since last August, So Anne has been in a recording studio with her singing group called “Koral la” (The Chorale) recording over 70 songs. The artists took a break in late January to allow Carnaval artists to record their music.

Auguste also had an operation on Feb. 1 at the Canapé Vert hospital to remove four fibrous tumors. Her doctor told her to rest for three months after the operation.

“Here is a woman who has been in a recording studio and recuperating from surgery for the past six months, and the U.S. authorities are accusing her of plotting all kinds of things,” Tido said. “It’s really absurd.”

Ralph Samedi also ridiculed the charge that his mother had been fomenting hostility against U.S. troops, although she is well within her legal rights to do so. “If my mother made threats against the multinational force, the accusers would have to say on which radio stations, which television channels she made the statements,” he said.

Miami & New York:
Demonstrators Hound Latortue

Some 300 Haitians demonstrated outside city hall in North Miami to denounce de facto Prime Minister Gérard Latortue’s visit there May 7. The city’s Republican mayor Joe Celestin invited Latortue along with U.S. Ambassador to Haiti James Foley to speak at a fundraising event for the Smithsonian Institute’s “Folklife Festival” for Haiti to be held next month on the Capitol Mall in Washington, D.C. Speaking on behalf of the Smithsonian was Geri Benoit, Haiti’s first lady from 1996 to 2000 when she was married to President René Préval.

The reception was attended by about 100 Haitian businessmen, current and aspiring politicians, and committees like the “Haitians for Bush Coalition,” headed by Sidney Charles. He argued that President Aristide deserved to be pushed from power on Feb. 29 because he had not observed “democratic rules” and had established “one-man – not even one party – rule.”

In the two months since Aristide was put on a plane leaving Haiti by U.S. Marines, food prices have doubled, garbage has not been collected, and electricity and telephone service are all but non-existent. Ambassador Foley blamed these problems on Aristide’s government saying that it had left Latortue’s de facto government with no funds. “It is above all the responsibility of the former government which took everything and spent everything, leaving the treasury bare,” Foley said.

But outside the hall, the demonstrators denounced Latortue, Foley and Mayor Celestin as coup-makers and kidnappers. Lavarice Gaudin of the Veye Yo popular organization said that “we are outraged that a former Duvalierist like Joe Celestin can invite the leader of a coup government here to Miami. We will not stand for it and we will continue our mobilization until the elected government is restored to Haiti.”

Meanwhile, in New York, some 40 demonstrators picketed the Harvard Club in Manhattan where Latortue gave a speech on the afternoon of May 10. They then marched to the newly moved Haitian Consulate on East 66th Street and picketed Latortue when he visited there later that day.

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