[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
#1362: Fire in Haitian town was political - officials say
From:nozier@tradewind.net
Fire in Haitian town was political - officials
02:15 p.m Dec 13, 1999 Eastern By Jennifer Bauduy
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Dec 13 (Reuters) - A fire that injured at least 10
people and destroyed 14 houses in the southwestern city of Jeremie was
deliberately set by groups opposed to Haiti's upcoming legislative
elections, officials said on Monday. ``This was part of a plan being
fuelled by enemies of change in the country who want to spread panic in
the department,'' said Ernso St. Clair, president of the electoral
office for the southwestern department of Grande-Anse, of which Jeremie
is the capital. Haiti's first legislative and municipal election in
nearly three years is set for March 19. The last vote -- in April 1997
-- triggered fraud allegations and led to a political crisis that
virtually paralysed the Haitian government. The fire flared in a
residential area of Jeremie on Friday and left some 50 people homeless,
local authorities said. It also damaged buildings that house telephone
and electric company facilities. `Local authorities are well aware of a
plan to burn all the communal electoral bureaus in the department of
Grande-Anse,'' St. Clair said. ``There are threats being made every day
against electoral officials and most recently declarations of war.''
A few months ago, members of the Resistance Coordination of Grande-Anse
(KOREGA) Party, closely linked to the Lavalas Family Party of former
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had protested the naming of
St. Clair to head the department's electoral office. The group claimed
that St. Clair was affiliated with a political alliance known as the
Espace de Concertation. KOREGA party leaders made statements broadcast
on Haitian radio vowing that if St. Clair remained head of the electoral
office, elections would not take place in Jeremie. The morning of the
fire, someone sabotaged Jeremie's water reservoir, cutting off the
town's water supply. Recently, someone tried to set fire to an
electoral office in the Grande-Anse village of Bonbon and electoral
materials were stolen from an electoral office in nearby Corail.
``The political situation is very complicated in this region,'' Carlo
Dupiton, a member of the Provisional Electoral Council, which is
organising elections, said on Radio Haiti Inter. `It appears that there
are some forces that do not want elections ... But overall in the
Grande-Anse things are going well,'' Dupiton said. On Saturday, a
governmental delegation led by Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis
visited Jeremie and announced the release of $5 million in aid to fire
victims.