13576: Chamberlain: Haiti government misses elections council deadline (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 5 (Reuters) - Political opponents criticized
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Tuesday after his government
missed a deadline for the creation of an elections council to oversee a
national vote early next year.
     The Organization of American States set the Monday deadline for
Aristide to create an electoral council -- drawing members from the
government, opposition groups, churches, human rights organizations and the
private sector -- as part of a move to restore the flow of foreign aid to
the impoverished Caribbean nation.
     As late as Monday afternoon, Aristide told reporters that he was
confident that an electoral council would be chosen by Tuesday morning.
     But with no council in place Tuesday, opposition politicians and civic
groups stepped up criticism of his government, saying they would not name
representatives to the council until Aristide established a climate of
security that would allow valid elections.
     "The problem of insecurity is a reality and one needs only to recall
the bloody events of December 17th to realize that," said Pastor Edouard
Paultre, spokesman for the Protestant Federation of Haiti, on private Radio
Metropole.
     On Dec. 17, commandos stormed Haiti's National Palace in what the
government called a coup attempt. Thousands of armed Aristide partisans
took to the streets, burning homes and offices connected to the opposition
coalition Democratic Convergence in unrest that claimed at least ten lives.
     The new elections are meant to address a two-year old political
dispute with the Democratic Convergence over May 2000 legislative elections
that Aristide's opponents contend were biased to favor his Lavalas Family
party. The deadlock has stalled over $500 million in international aid.
     Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest whose first term as Haiti's
president was cut short by a bloody military coup, began his second term in
January 2001.
     In a resolution passed in September, the OAS urged donor nations to
restore aid. It also called for the disarmament of political militants and
the arrest of those responsible for political violence.
     The terms of 18 of Haiti's 27 senators and all members of the Chamber
of Deputies, the lower house, expire at the end of November.