13896: ayiti1804: NY Times 11-27-02 Opposition Vows to Force Resignation (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti 1804 <ayiti1804@hotmail.com>

NY Times
<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/28/international/americas/28HAIT.html>

Haitian Opposition Vows New Protests to Force Aristide to Resign
By REUTERS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov. 27 (Reuters) — Opponents stepped up the pressure
on President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti today, saying they planned to
hold continuous nationwide protests until he resigned.

As thousands of students marched in the northern city of Cap Haitien, one of
Aristide's major political foes, Evans Paul, the former mayor of
Port-au-Prince, announced in the capital that opposition parties would begin
a new round of large demonstrations on Thursday.

"We must combat and prevent the establishment of an Aristide dictatorship in
Haiti," said Mr. Paul, secretary general of the Konfederasyon Inite
Demokratik party, which is associated with the opposition coalition
Democratic Convergence. "We will continue with our peaceful national
mobilization until we free the country from Lavalas control."

Mr. Aristide, whose Lavalas Family party controls Parliament, has faced
increasingly violent demonstrations in the past two weeks over Haiti's
faltering economy and perceptions that his government is interfering with
the school system.

His supporters have mounted large and noisy counterdemonstrations.

The protest today in Cap Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, echoed one on
Nov. 17 in which an estimated 10,000 people took part, the private Radio
Vision 2000 reported.

Protests were also reported in the provincial cities of Petit-Gôave and
Gonaïves, where eight people have been shot in political violence since
Monday.

On Tuesday, unidentified gunmen in Gonaïves fired on a marked car belonging
to the Organization of American States, local news media said. No one was
reported injured.

The organization is trying to broker a political truce in Haiti, and this
week it criticized Mr. Aristide's government for its handling of the recent
demonstrations.

"The acts are provocations by the opposition," said Mario Dupuy, secretary
of state for communications. "We are committed to tracking down those
responsible for violence."

A former Roman Catholic priest who rallied Haiti's poor masses to overthrow
a 30-year dictatorship in the mid-1980's, Mr. Aristide has been hamstrung
since he took office in February 2001 by a dispute with Democratic
Convergence over contested May 2000 legislative elections.

The deadlock has stalled over $500 million in desperately needed aid to
eight million people in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas.

Haiti's currency, the gourde, has lost 40 percent of its value, and
inflation is up 16 percent in the last year.






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