[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
#3142: U.S. warns Haiti's Preval to keep electoral pledge (fwd)
From:nozier@tradewind.net
WIRE:04/05/2000 15:36:00 ET
U.S. warns Haiti's Preval to keepelectoral pledge
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Haitian government risks international
isolation if parliamentary elections -- postponed three times -- are
not held without delay, the United States said Wednesday. U.S.
officials and congressmen called for Haitian President Rene Preval
topromptly set a date for a vote so the new parliament can take office
by June 12 as mandated by the constitution.They also urged Preval to
stop the escalating political violence that led to the assassination
Monday of prominent journalist and democracy advocate Jean
Leopold Dominique. Preval closed the National Assembly 15 months ago
and has ruled the hemisphere's poorest country by decree since then.
Failure to constitute a parliament by June 12 would risk isolating
Haiti from the community of democracies and jeopardize future
cooperation," Peter Romero, the assistant secretary of state for
Western Hemisphere affairs, told a congressional hearing.
"We will continue to put pressure on President Preval to hold these
elections," he told the House International Relations Committee.
Romero said the United States will ask the Organization of American
States Thursday to send its secretary general, Cesar Gaviria of
Colombia, to Haiti to assess the situation. The OAS could call a
meeting of the hemisphere's foreign ministers to decide on collective
steps to defend democracy in Haiti, he said. Romero said conditions
existed to hold transparent and fair elections, despite a climate of
increasing violence.
The government has cited logistic problems for the delay. But Romero
said Preval had not shown the political will to hold elections and
Haiti was slipping down an undemocratic path. Failure to hold elections
would dash the hopes of an unprecedented 4 million Haitians who have
registered to vote since January -- 90 percent of those eligible, he
said. Multilateral development banks have been holding off $400
million in badly needed loans for two years because of the political
uncertainty, he said. Romero said the United States has made a big
investment in building democracy in Haiti. In 1994, 20,000 U.S. troops
were sent to restore Haiti's first democratically elected president,
BertrandAristide, three years after he was deposed by a military
junta.