18270: Esser: Haiti's Aristide refuses to step down (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. E s s e r <torx@mail.joimail.com>

Agence France Presse
Wed Feb 4, 9:58 PM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide again
said he would finish his term, despite escalating demands for his
resignation.

"I will leave here on February 7, 2006," Aristide told CNN. "People
must respect that principle, one man, one vote."

Aristide's opponents say he stole the 2000 election that returned him
to power. International observers also said the polls were flawed,
leaving the Caribbean nation locked in political crisis.

Protests against Aristide have turned increasingly violent since
September, with clashes among rival demonstrators and gunfights by
gangs who back the president.

On Wednesday, five anti-Aristide students were arrested in
demonstrations that police tried to quell with tear gas and warning
shots fired in the air.

Student demonstrators were shouting slogans hostile to the president
when counter demonstrators from Aristide's Lavals Party hurled
bottles and rocks at them, according to an AFP journalist.

The students responded by throwing back projectiles.

There were no reported injuries.

Aristide insisted he did not support the armed gangs that routinely
attack opposition marches.

"Not only we don't support them, we cannot support them. We are
building a state of law. How could we let thugs, gangs moving ahead
with weapons in their hands," he said.

"We have to help the police, because the police has to be more
professionalized. And the police of course has to protect all those
who want to demonstrate in a peaceful way."

Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was first elected president in
1990, but eight months after taking office he was overthrown in a
bloody military coup.

The United States sent 20,000 troops to Haiti in 1994 to bring
Aristide back to power. He stepped down after his first five-year
term, and was re-elected in 2000.

Legislative elections were supposed to be held last year, but no
electoral body was set up to oversee the polls, leaving the nation
without a functioning legislature.

Aristide now rules by decree, but has promised elections within six
months. The opposition has rejected his proposal as inadequate.