Two Haitian militants killed in mob attack

A mob killed two leading militants of Haiti’s National Popular Party, whose Creole acronym is PPN, outside the town of St. Raphael on June 26. The two men, Prad Rémy Jean Vernet and Adriene Michel, were also journalists with PPN’s Haiti Progrès newspaper. Vernet, known as Ped, was the administrator of the publication, and Michel was the paper’s northern correspondent.

The mob had been in pursuit of six thieves who had robbed a small cooperative bank in St. Raphael of about $1,800. The mob followed the thieves into the mountains where they came upon Vernet and Michel.

“With machetes, the mob killed Ped on the spot but led Adrien to town and turned him over to the police,” Kim Ives reported in the July 9 issue of Haiti Liberté. A judge ordered Michel to be jailed in the nearby town of Grande Riviere du Nord and sent back to St. Raphael for trial on June 30. However, Ives reported that over the weekend Michel died in Cap Haitien’s Justinien Hospital and that the cause of death was unknown.

“What group of zenglendos [thieves] organized the attack on the credit union?” PPN’s assistant Secretary General Georges Honorat asked in a press release. “Who accused these two militants of being a part of a zenglendo team causing them to be lynched on the spot? These are the questions that must be clarified.”

The Associated Press quoted a U.N. police spokesman who said witnesses reported that the thieves were wearing Haitian National Police uniforms when they robbed the bank.

PPN said Vernet and Michel had been in St. Raphael to mobilize support for the party’s candidates in upcoming Senate elections. Ives noted that according to local reports, police are looking for other PPN members in the area.

The National Popular Party is a national, revolutionary, anti-imperialist party based in the peasantry. It evolved out of the mass movement known as the National Popular Assembly. The PPN is fighting for Haiti’s national independence and against imperialist domination.