a1700: BBC: Haiti: Lavalas supporters warn against "conspiracy" role of OAS mission (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Haiti: Lavalas supporters warn against "conspiracy" role of OAS mission
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Apr 17, 2002


Lavalas people's organizations [OP] oppose the arrival of the OAS technical
mission in Haiti. The Saint Jean Bosco Grass-roots Church Communities [TKL]
and the Youth for People's Power [JPP] warn against the deployment of the
regional organization's experts who will come to help the local authorities
on justice, security, governance and democracy. OP leaders Paul Raymond and
Rene Civil insist that a new form of occupation is under way. Naomie Calixte
reports as follows:
[Calixte - recording] According to Lavalas OPs, the current OAS mission
investigating the 17 December violence has come to support the Democratic
Convergence [opposition coalition]. The JPP and TKL maintain that there is a
conspiracy against the Lavalas regime. This plot against President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide is being staged by the Democratic Convergence and the
international community, the Lavalas OPs explained. Raymond and Civil issued
this warning:
[Civil] //The anti-Democratic Convergence and all its accomplices that are
being used as a springboard for the international community which is
strangling us, be careful not to cry when things get worse for you. As you
said that President Titid [Aristide] will not even be able to make the
transition, in this case you must not forget that what took place on 17
December [an alleged attempted coup] was nothing compared to what will
happen this time.//
[Calixte] OP members urged their partisans and the Haitian population to
block the OAS technical mission. According to them, this international
mission is nothing but a form of occupation. Raymond doubts the credibility
of the OAS:
[Raymond] //Just tell me where is the morality and what is the credibility
of the OAS when we all know that it is George Bush and Colin Powell, those
Nazi criminals, who are leading it? They have just supported a wicked coup
d'etat in Venezuela. If it were not for the people of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez
would not have returned to power. What democratic lesson can those people
give us?//
//Today, if we allow the 9,000 Nazi military men to penetrate our territory
under the pretext that they will facilitate the unblocking of a so-called
crisis, which they have created despite the decision of the people that
showed their decision on 21 May 2000 and 26 November 2000 [dates of the last
parliamentary and presidential elections respectively], if we allow them to
come to our land then we can say that we are condemned to return to slavery
once again. We say: Never again. In the name of the blood that flowed in the
veins of Dessalines [a founder of the independent state of Haiti] and in our
veins they will not be able to penetrate our land, because shall defend our
land by every means.//
[Calixte] The JPP and TKL leaders asked the head of state to set up economic
and social programmes for the population so that the population may fight
against what they call a destabilization plan for 2004.
Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 17 Apr 02
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.