14037: Arthur: Inaccurate news (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

>From Charles Arthur:

The number of inaccuracies in news reports about Haiti beggars belief. Here
is the latest one  - or the latest one that I have noticed...that appeared in
The Miami Herald on Wed, Dec. 04, 2002.

Former Haitian leader in legal tug of war
BY MARIKA LYNCH

snip - "Two weeks later, Avril was signing copies of his book, The Black Book
on Insecurity, at a Petionville restaurant when masked commandos swept him off
to prison. The book, still on sale in the capital for $12, blames Aristide's
rule for crime and uneasiness among Haitians. It ends with a list of 554
people killed between 1995 and 2000 when Aristide's party, Lavalas, was in
power."



FACT: Aristide's party - the Lavalas Family did not exist until late 1996 and
did not hold any elected positions in the Parliament until after the general
elections held in May 2000.

If any party was 'in power' between 1995 and 2000, it was the OPL - formerly
the Lavalas Political Organisation and, since 1996 known as the Struggling
People's Organisation. If the OPL was ever Aristide's party, it certainly
stopped being that in 1996 - why else would Aristide have formed a new party?