12456: Haiti-Coup Attempt (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHAEL NORTON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 2 (AP) -- The December attack on Haiti's National
Palace was not an attempted coup as the government claimed, the
Organization of American States said Tuesday.
   In a report following a three-month investigation, the organization did
not go so far as to back opposition claims that the attack was staged by
the government to clamp down on dissent.
   But it charged that officials from the government and President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's party armed the militants who plundered and burned
the offices and homes of opposition leaders in a spate of attacks after the
palace assault.
   About 20 armed men occupied the National Palace in downtown
Port-au-Prince on Dec. 17, and then fled. At least 10 people were killed in
the assault and subsequent violence.
   Members of Aristide's governing Lavalas Family party criticized the
report.
   "If there was an attack against the National Palace, the presidency was
attacked. That means it was indeed an attempted coup," Sen. Clones Lans
told The Associated Press.
   Opposition spokesman Gerard Pierre-Charles countered that "the
commission told the truth."
   The conclusions of the three-member OAS commission of inquiry contradict
Aristide's claims that the attack was aimed at overthrowing the government
and assassinating him.
   "The objective of the attack on the National Palace does not correspond
with the objective of producing a coup d'etat," the commission said. "The
political opposition did not participate in the planning or in the
execution of the attack."
   Aristide was not in the palace at the time.
   The commission said the burning of opposition offices was "premeditated"
and the palace attack could not have occurred without the "complicity" of
police.
   Those who attacked the opposition "acted with impunity" and "continue to
enjoy immunity from the judicial and investigative institutions of Haiti,"
the report said.
   Haiti's government and opposition are embroiled in a two-year dispute
over flawed legislative elections in 2000. The stalemate is holding up
hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the impoverished Caribbean
country.