26998: Hermantin(News)Family seeking release of priest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Sun Sentinel

Family seeking release of priest


Haitian activist said to be sick and in need of treatment



By Tim Collie
Staff Writer

December 22, 2005



The South Florida-based family of one of Haiti's most important spiritual 
leaders pleaded Wednesday for his Christmastime release from the Haitian prison 
where he has been held for five months without being charged.

The Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste is sick and may have cancer, according to his 
doctors, and his family wants him flown to Miami for medical treatment. They 
appealed to both Haiti's interim government and the Bush administration, which 
has backed the government since it replaced ousted President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide in 2004.

"We want my brother to be released as soon as possible, today, for Christmas, 
so he can come here and get the treatment he needs," said Francine Delica, 53, 
Jean-Juste's sister. "So, I'm asking, please, release him so he can get the 
help he needs."

Jean-Juste, a charismatic priest often touted by his followers as a potential 
presidential candidate, has worked among the Haitian poor in both South Florida 
and the island nation for the past three decades.

During the 1980s, he was a leading refugee advocate in Miami who fought for 
immigration rights for Haiti's boat people. In the 1990s, he returned to Haiti 
and set up a parish in one of the capital city's poorest slums, where he helped 
feed hundreds of orphaned children every day.

But because he was a close ally of Aristide, he quickly ran afoul of the new 
government. He has been jailed since July because of suspected involvement in 
the abduction and slaying of a well-known local journalist. But no charges have 
been filed, and human rights groups have called him a political prisoner.

His doctors think he may have cancer because of a swelling of his neck, but 
government physicians who have examined him say he is not sick. Phone calls to 
a government spokesman in Port-au-Prince were not returned Wednesday.

"You can hear it in his voice -- he's not well," said Fayola Delica, 23, 
Jean-Juste's niece and a nurse. "It could be cancer ... it could be an 
infectious disease. We don't know because conditions in the jail are not 
sanitary. We want him here with family for Christmas. That's all we're asking."
Copyright © 2005, South Florida Sun-Sentinel