Father Jean-Juste thanks the US Congessmembers for their support

Pacot Prison Annex, National Penitentiary, Port au Prince, Haiti

Letter To: The Congressional Black Caucus US Congress, Washington, DC

Honorable Legislators,

Your call for my immediate release brings me the holiday season's hope. It is time for peace, justice, and greater love, particularly among us, various branches of the African Diaspora in America.

Can the day come when all of us African descendants in the Americas join together for mutual concerns, unity, and greater solidarity among us in this native continent of ours? Then can we come together in even stronger solidarity with our brothers and sisters in African, our grandmother continent? These are my wishes for this holidays season.

With all our human and material resources, can we aim at bringing basic human needs to our suffering brothers and sisters in America?

We are all Americans. Too many people think America means only USA. America is North America, Central America, South America and the Caribbean America.

I wish to make sense to you in my approach. I am upset about the misery of everyone in America - especially of African-Americans anywhere. Too many members of the African Diaspora are dying of malnutrition and disease at ages and rates that are much worse than those of other ethnic groups.

I am grateful to God seeing the sharing among European brothers and sisters. A European can travel anywhere in his/her continent. They are working together for greater sharing and greater unity among them. I admire that. Even a foreign student can obtain a student visa that allows him/her to travel all over Europe.

In our own continent, we still have a long way to go. I pray to God that from 2006 on, some of us can take up the task of bringing the African Diaspora together. We can use our unity in America to demand and obtain the eradication of misery and underdevelopment in any place in any country in our continent.

For myself, I had the chance to live my entire adult life in the USA and forget about the Haiti of my youth. I chose to move back to face life in Haiti in 1990. I have tried to contribute my share in helping improve the lives of Haitians in Haiti while staying in touch with Americans of all ethnicities all around our American continent. It is a tough challenge. But with the grace of God and the solidarity of of all of you who are doing your best in America and in Africa and around the world, together we can share lives of peace, justice and greater love because we are all God's children.

Happy new year to each one of you. Many thanks for your letter of support. Together I hope we can touch the heart of our brother President Baby Bush.

Yours truly,

Gerard Jean-Juste
Prisoner of Conscience
National Penitentiary - Pacot Annex
Port au Prince, Haiti

Letter delivered c/o Bill Quigley, volunteer counsel for Pere Jean-Juste

See Also:

Congresswoman Waters and 41 other Members of Congress urge President Bush to seek the release of Fr. Jean-Juste from prison in Haiti Dec 16