16687: (Craig) Article: U.S. Gives Haiti 'Weeks' to Show Good Will (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


U.S. Gives Haiti 'Weeks' to Show Good Will
September 8, 2003
By REUTERS
Filed at 1:49 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Monday gave the
government of Haiti "weeks not months" to show whether it
has the will to restore confidence in the security
situation and the electoral process, a senior official said
on Monday.

But the United States will not impose political sanctions
on the Haitian government without support from Haiti's
neighbors in the Caribbean, Assistant Secretary of State
Roger Noriega told an event at a Washington think tank.

The United States helped bring Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide back to power in 1994 but it has
grown increasingly disillusioned with the way he has run
the country, especially after the disputed election of May
2000.

The United States has worked with the Organization of
American States in an attempt to persuade the Aristide
government to meet the organization's demands on democracy.

The latest step was a decision to send former U.S. diplomat
Terence Todman as OAS envoy to promote dialogue between the
government and the opposition in Haiti.

Noriega, speaking at the Center for Strategic and
International Studies, said: "We are going the extra mile
now trying to hold the government accountable to make small
steps toward restoring confidence in the security situation
in Haiti so that people will feel free and comfortable and
safe in re-engaging in some sort of an electoral process.

"We will measure whether or not the Haitian government has
the political will to make those small meaningful steps in
a matter of weeks not months."

"We cannot move forward ... to sanction the Haitian
government ... under the Inter-American Democratic Charter
unless countries in the region, particularly in the
Caribbean, are prepared to join us. We want to make our
decisions on this issue in concert with our friends. We do
not want to take unilateral measures," he added.

He said that any sanctions would be political rather than
economic but did not suggest what they might be.

The democratic charter, signed in Lima in 2001, would
enable the organization to suspend the membership of a
country in which the democratic order is seriously
impaired.

Noriega complained that even since Todman began his mission
in Haiti last month, the United States had noticed cases of
the Haitian police suppressing political expression.

"That's not a very auspicious sign," he said.

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/politics/politics-haiti-usa.html?ex=1064116346&ei=1&en=4d3e2185a849c64d
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company