Haiti's jailed former PM resumes hunger strike

Source: Reuters Foundation
Date: 29 Apr 2005

By Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 29 (Reuters) - Haiti's jailed former prime minister, Yvon Neptune, is "closer to death than life" after resuming a hunger strike 10 months after being jailed on accusations of organizing a massacre, a human rights group said on Friday.

Neptune, who served under ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and has called the massacre allegations politically motivated, started a hunger strike on Feb. 20 but began eating again on March 10 after he was transferred to a hospital in Port-au-Prince run by a U.N. peacekeeping force.

The head of the Committee to Protect the Rights of the Haitian People, Ronald St-Jean, said Neptune went back on hunger strike on April 17 and was now in critical condition.

"Neptune is closer to death than life after 10 days without drinking or eating anything," St-Jean told Reuters. "We urgently call on the international community to intervene and save Neptune's life," he said. <snip>

http://www.reliefweb.int/rw/RWB.NSF/db900SID/MMQD-6BWSDM?OpenDocument