Aristide's former premier ailing from hunger strike

[XXPANTHAXX]

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — The former prime minister for
ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will leave
for the Dominican Republic on Monday for medical treatment
after resuming a hunger strike to protest his prolonged
detention, the Dominican military chief said Sunday.

Yvon Neptune, who has been held without charge for 10 months
in connection with political killings during the February
2004 rebellion that ousted Aristide, will be taken to a
hospital in the Dominican capital of Santo Domingo, the
secretary of the Dominican Armed Forces, Adm. Sigfrido Pared
Perez, told The Associated Press.

There was no word Sunday from Haiti's interim government on
whether it had agreed to allow Neptune to leave the country
permanently or it expected him to return. Interim Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue and his justice minister could not
be reached for comment.

A Western diplomat in Haiti said Neptune was expected to fly
out in a helicopter Sunday for medical care, adding that
earlier reports he was going into exile were incorrect. The
diplomat spoke on condition of anonymity because a formal
announcement had not been made.

Haiti has been in turmoil since Aristide fled the country.
More than 400 people have been killed since Aristide
supporters in September stepped up protests to demand his
return from exile in South Africa. Many fear the violence
could thwart efforts to hold elections in October and
November.

Interim government officials for months have resisted
international pressure to release Neptune, unwilling to give
into what some are calling the blackmail of a hunger strike
that Aristide loyalists say has left the former official near
death.

"He will not take anything, not water, not medication," said
human rights activist Kettly Julien of the Institute for
Mobile Education, who has been visiting Neptune regularly.

An official at the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti said on
condition of anonymity that Neptune was still under house
arrest Sunday in a luxury suburb, where he was moved earlier
this month after being hospitalized to recover from a 19-day
hunger strike. Neptune, 58, resumed the strike 12 days ago.

Latortue's office said Saturday night he had appointed a
cardiologist, urologist and psychiatrist to tend to Neptune,
but Haitian law forbids force-feeding a person who is
conscious and refuses nourishment.

Neptune initially was considered a traitor by Aristide
loyalists when he handed power to an interim president, Chief
Justice Boniface Alexandre, within days of Aristide's Feb.
29, 2004, flight as rebels converged on Haiti's capital, Port-
au-Prince.

At the time, he resisted pressure to go into exile from
diplomats and interim government officials installed after
U.S. troops arrived.

After his arrest in June, he became a rallying point for both
militants demanding the release of hundreds of Aristide
officials and loyalists jailed without charge, and for human
rights activists demanding he be tried.

The government accuses Neptune of orchestrating the killings
of Aristide opponents in the western town of St. Marc during
the rebellion but has not brought charges. Neptune denies the
allegations.