16 Manigat Aides Jailed, Haitian in Hiding Says

At least 16 key aides and supporters of former President Leslie F. Manigat were under arrest Wednesday by the new Haitian regime and a score of others were believed to be either secretly imprisoned or on the run, according to an official of Manigat’s political party who is in hiding himself.

Three of the detainees in the notorious Ft. Dimanche prison, which served as a center of torture and execution under the Duvalier family dictatorship, were reported by another former official to have been beaten by their captors.

Col. Acedius St. Louis, information minister under the military government of Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, who seized power Sunday night, confirmed in a Radio Antilles broadcast that an unidentified number of prisoners still are being held. He said they are being treated well.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Charles Redman said the Reagan Administration found the arrests “alarming as one of the first acts of the Namphy regime.” Redman added, “We have taken that issue up with Haitian officials, making clear . . . that we expect strict respect for internationally recognized human and civil rights.”

At least two of those arrested apparently hold American citizenship, and a U.S. Embassy spokesman in Port-au-Prince said, “We are aware of the problem and are pursuing it.”

According to the Manigat party aide in hiding, 15 of the 16 loyalists known to be in prison were arrested early Monday in the ousted president’s presence when Namphy’s soldiers came to remove him from the presidential residence. The other was arrested at home.

Promises of Safety

The party aide, who said Manigat had confirmed the report in a telephone call from the Dominican Republic, declared that the officers promised Manigat that those arrested would not be harmed and would be released by Monday night.

Also Wednesday, Manigat told a Dominican Republic television interviewer that he would tour the United States, the Caribbean and Europe seeking international backing for democracy in Haiti.

Meanwhile, in the first open defiance of the Namphy regime, workers struck Haiti’s largest flour mill to protest the return of a manager they had rejected when he ran the mill during Namphy’s previous reign as head of an army-dominated government.

The mill workers walked off the job Tuesday after the military government fired their director, who had been appointed by Manigat, and reinstated the former manager, said union leaders at La Minoterie d’Haiti in Lafitteau, about 12 miles north of Port-au-Prince.

But the Namphy government reacted quickly to the strike Wednesday, according to one union leader, firing more than 80 workers, including the union’s entire executive committee. Manigat’s former aide said he has forwarded the list of names of the 16 loyalists, plus nine other people who are missing and possibly detained, to Western embassies. He also said a dozen more political party officers and Manigat associates, whom he did not name, have gone into hiding or disappeared.

His list of those in prison includes former Information Minister Roger Savain; Savain’s son Roger Jr., and Manigat’s administrative chief of staff, Lionel Desgranges. All three were said by another former official with ties to the military to have been mistreated and beaten.

Also believed to be held in Ft. Dimanche are Robert Benodin, a Haitian-American believed to hold U.S. citizenship who served as a top economic adviser to Manigat, and his wife, Mireille, who was the secretary to Manigat’s wife.

Another aide believed to be a U.S. citizen was reported missing and possibly in prison. He is Jean Bogart, a former employee of AT&T; in Boston who had recently returned to his native Port-au-Prince to help improve communications in the presidential palace.