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#3885: Police Free Arrested Haiti Opposition Ex-Senator (fwd)
From:nozier@tradewind.net
WIRE:05/26/2000 15:57:00 ET
Police Free Arrested Haiti Opposition Ex-Senator
PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) - Haitian authorities freed former
opposition senator Paul Denis on Friday, three days after he became
one of many opposition politicians to be arrested since Sunday's
elections, local radio reported. In the five days since the Caribbean
nation held legislative and municipal elections,Haitian police have
arrested dozens of opposition politicians, many of them candidates, and
scores of others have gone into hiding. "They abducted and kidnapped me
for three days.After three days they brought me back to Les Cayes.
They don't even have a police report," Denis told reporters at his
party headquarters in Les Cayes, 120 miles southwest of the capital.
Denis, a one-time supporter of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide,
is now one of his outspoken critics and had run for re-election on
Sunday. He was arrested by police on Tuesday, witnesses said,
and held at a police station outside the Haitian capital. No
explanation was given for his sudden release.Police had charged Denis
with illegal weapons possession, charges which Denis had denied.
Official election results have not yet been announced,though Aristide's
Lavalas Family has claimed a landslide victory after the voting to fill
7,500 vacant posts nationwide, including parliament. Since the
elections, some 30 members of Denis' Organization of People in Struggle
Party have been arrested across Haiti. At least 15 members of another
opposition group, the Espace de Concertation coalition party,
including parliament deputy candidate Limongy Jean, were arrested in
the southwestern town of Petit-Goave. But Prime Minister
Jacques-Edouard Alexis said on Friday, "We haven't arrested only people
in the opposition; we have arrested members of Lavalas Family as
well." "While election results were being prepared, we were forced to
take security measures to make sure that the sore losers don't create
problems," Alexis told local radio. Polling was marred by several hours
of delay due to lack of ballots or poll workers, and some polling sites
never opened.Witnesses reported that in some cases poll workers or
Aristide's Lavalas Family party observers pressured voters to vote for
Lavalas. In dozens of cases, gunmen stormed voting stations across
Haiti and stole ballot boxes, witnesses said.