8237: Haiti: Foreign minister tells OAS meeting: "Convergence rejects everything" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <maxblanchet@worldnet.att.net>

Haiti: Foreign minister tells OAS meeting: "Convergence rejects everything"
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jun 6, 2001

Text of report by Haitian Metropole radio on 6 June

The Haitian foreign minister, who is attending the OAS General Assembly, has
criticized severely the Democratic Convergence, which he accused of being
responsible for the current crisis. Joseph Philippe Antonio guaranteed,
however, that the current government is going to work with the opposition in
forming a new CEP [Provisional Electoral Council].

[Joseph - recording] The Convergence rejects everything. I want people to
understand that the Haitian crisis began with an OAS report. The OAS noted
that there were irregularities [in the 21 May elections] and asked for a
rectification to be made. Now we are actually rectifying those
irregularities with the OAS. That means that if a resolution is taken, the
commitments that President Aristide made in his letter go in the sense of
the resolution in order to get to a solution to the controversy.

Now, regarding our relations with the opposition in general and with the
Convergence in general, I repeat what has already been said, which is this:
at the level of the government and at the level of the Lavalas Family [FL]
we always remain open to dialogue. Once the Convergence appears to
understand the need to talk and to abandon their zero option, the Lavalas
government can always hold discussions with them and discuss conditions in
order to get out of the crisis. [End of recording]

Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 6 Jun 01

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.