18753: Esser: Taiwan's mission takes shelter in Port-au-Prince (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com

Taipei Times

Taiwan's mission takes shelter in Port-au-Prince
By Melody Chen
STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Feb 18, 2004,Page 1

Most members of Taiwan's technical mission in Haiti have moved to the
country's capital, Port-au-Prince, to avoid the increasingly violent
opposition movement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.

Apart from the mission leader and several aides, the members and
their families have left the mission compound for the Haitian
capital, said ministry spokesman Richard Shih.

So far the 46 ROC citizens and staff at Taiwan's embassy in
Port-au-Prince have been unharmed, he said.

Shih said the government believed the conflict in Haiti "would not
hurt the relationship between Taiwan and Haiti," one of Taiwan's 14
allies in Latin America.

The US, Canada and the Organization of American States are concerned
about the situation in Haiti, Shih added.

He said that the fighting has not had much of an impact on most people's lives.

Michel Lu, former Taiwanese ambassador to Haiti, said widespread
poverty has deepened grudges against the Haitian president, Jean
Bertrand Aristide.

"It won't be an easy thing to get the opposition movement under
control," he said.

But Lu added strife is unlikely to affect the Taiwan-Haiti relationship.

"The US attitude will be crucial to Aristide's survival. The
president does not have troops -- that's a big problem for him," Lu
said.

Early last month, Aristide told Examination Yuan President Yao
Chia-wen, President Chen Shui-bian's special envoy for the
celebration of Haiti's 200th anniversary of independence from France,
that he would continue to support Taiwan's bids to join international
organizations.

Aristide told Yao he hoped Chen succeeds in his re-election campaign
and that he would like to invite Chen to visit Haiti after the March
election.