By: Kim Ives - Haiti Liberté

On June 26, an angry mob in the mountains near the northern town of St. Raphael attacked and killed two leading militants of the National Popular Party (PPN), mistaking them for thieves who had robbed a bank in the town earlier that day. One of the men was killed at the scene where the mob found them; the other died two days later in a hospital in the nearby city Cap Haitien.

Prad Rémy Jean Vernet, known as Ped, was the administrator of Haiti Progres newspaper and Adrien Michel was the paper's Northern correspondent. Both men were also members of PPN's Political Bureau. They had been in St. Raphael, according to a PPN press release, to mobilize support for the party's candidates in upcoming Senate elections, the schedule for which the Provisional Electoral Council has yet to announce.

Six armed thieves, known in Haiti as "zenglendo," had robbed a small cooperative bank, the "Fraternité Caisse Populaire" (Brotherhood Popular Credit Union), in St. Raphael around noon, making off with about 70,000 gourdes (about US$1800), according to Radio Kiskeya's . The local police gave chase but the thieves fired on them, causing them to break off their pursuit. The thieves headed into the mountains.

The rural population mobilized in bands scouring the mountains for the thieves. They came across the two PPN militants. With machetes, the mob killed Ped on the spot but led Adrien to town and turned him over to the police. The next afternoon, on June 27, the local investigating judge (juge de paix) Jean-Claude Petit-Frere questioned Adrien, who explained that he was not a zenglendo but a journalist and a PPN militant in the town on PPN business. Asked who he knew in town, Adrien gave as a local reference Evy Désir, a PPN Central Committee member from St. Raphael, who happened to be in Port-au-Prince attending a religious gathering. Ped and Adrien had spent the previous night at Désir's home.

Judge Petit-Frere ordered Adrien to be jailed in the nearby town of Grande Riviere du Nord and to be returned to St. Raphael for trial on Monday, June 30. However, over the weekend, Adrien died in Cap Haitien's Justinien hospital. The cause of death is still unclear.

"What group of zenglendos organized the attack on the St. Raphael credit union?" asked the PPN's assistant Secretary General Georges Honorat in a June 29 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 PPN called on authorities to investigate the matter, warning that reactionary forces "want to spread mourning to intimidate PPN members and there are other sectors who want to create confusion with rumors and disinformation."

Police and troops from the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH) surrounded the house of Evy Désir following Adrien's interrogation. The St. Raphael mayor Antiocus Jean Francois forbade the searching of Désir's home, saying he was not in town and knew nothing of these events.

According to local reports, police are now looking for other PPN members in the area, including Evy Désir's son, Levy.

Ped, in his early 40s, was a long-time PPN militant, who had been a high school teacher at the Lycée Philippe Guerrier and the Lycée Boukman in Cap Haitien. His wife and two young daughters live in Cap Haitien.

Adrien, in his early 30s, had twin daughters who presently live with their mother in New York.