14753: Hermantin: Miami-Herald- Aristide cheered at rally (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Feb. 08, 2003

Aristide cheered at rally
Leader cites vote progress
BY JANE REGAN
Special to the Herald

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Thousands of Haitians cheered President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide on Friday at a raucous rally to mark a double anniversary: the
downfall of the long-ruling Duvalier government and Aristide's inauguration
as the country's first democratically elected president.

The rally was held in the capital's industrial park, where hundreds of
students carried signs asking for financial assistance for their schools.
Thousands others wearing new Aristide T-shirts arrived in buses to hear the
president call for ''peace'' and ``political stability.''

As the crowd chanted ''Aristide, king!,'' the president surprised his
supporters with the promise of a minimum wage hike and the formation of the
long-awaited electoral council.

The new council is meant to open the way for parliamentary and local
elections, which the government hopes will lead the country out of its
nearly three-year political impasse and encourage international donors to
again give aid.

The electoral council decree, however, only contains seven of the nine
required names.

Two seats remain unfilled because nearly all of Haiti's political parties
say they will not participate in elections until the government disarms
gangs, improves security and prosecutes political crimes.

It was also unclear whether some of those named actually will participate in
the electoral council.

''This is a complete masquerade, an attempt by the government to duck its
responsibilities,'' said Eliphaite St. Pierre of the Platform of Haitian
Rights Organizations, one of the groups responsible for filling the human
rights seat on the council.

St. Pierre said that the human rights representative and at least one other
representative will not agree to serve until the government fulfills its
promises.

Aristide also announced he will try to fix the new minimum wage at 70
gourdes, about $1.60.

The new wage -- irrelevant to the 65 percent of the population who remain
jobless -- is worth less than the minimum wage Aristide set in 1995, about
$2.15.

It is also less than the Duvalier regime's $3 per day.

The announcements came on a date Haitians consider their second
independence, calling it ``Haiti Free!''

This is because it marks the date of dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier's fall in
1986, as well as the inauguration of Aristide in 1991 after the country's
first-ever democratic elections.







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