18858: (Chamberlain) International team to pressure Aristide, says Canada (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By David Ljunggren

     OTTAWA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - The United States, Canada and France will
send a delegation to Haiti this weekend to push President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide to live up to commitments made to opposition figures now engaged
in a violent uprising, Ottawa said on Thursday.
     But Canada made it clear it was not demanding that Aristide resign.
Washington said on Thursday it was open to him stepping down, the first
time the United States has publicly acknowledged his departure could be a
way out of the crisis.
     Dozens of people have died in a two-week rebellion against Aristide,
which capped months of anti-government demonstrations and years of
political tensions dating from contested parliamentary elections in 2000.
     Canadian Foreign Minister Bill Graham told reporters that the team --
due to arrive in Haiti on Saturday -- would also include representatives
from the Organization of American States and the Caricom regional grouping.
     "Obviously, we can't allow this to continue to develop the way it's
developing," he told reporters.
     Earlier this month, Aristide met mediators in Kingston, Jamaica, and
agreed to a number of measures designed to end the impasse -- commitments
that Graham said the Haitian leader was breaking.
     "The international community will send a group of emissaries to put
pressure on Mr Aristide who is not keeping to the promises made in
Kingston," he told reporters.
     "We want to reinforce that message and therefore we've agreed -- all
of us -- to do a joint demarche to him to say 'Look, you've got to live up
to your obligations under the Kingston agreement'."
     The Kingston measures included setting up a broad-based advisory
council to the government, appointing a new prime minister and disarming
gangs aligned with political parties.
     There are some 150,000 people of Haitian descent in Canada, most of
them in the French-speaking province of Quebec.
     Aristide was ousted in a military coup shortly after beginning his
first term in 1991, but was restored to office by a U.S. invasion in 1994.
     "It is clear that we don't want Aristide's head. We think Aristide
should stay ... it is clear we want a political solution," said Denis
Coderre, who will be Canada's representative on the trip.
     Coderre is the minister responsible for relations with the
Francophonie grouping of French-speaking countries.
     A spokeswoman for Graham said the team would also include Roger
Noriega -- U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs
-- as well as Jamaican Foreign Minister Keith Knight and Bahamian Foreign
Minister Fred Mitchell.
     Haiti appealed on Tuesday for international help in the form of
technical assistance to its 5,000-strong police force.
     Washington and Ottawa say they will not even consider sending help
until the fighting ends and the two sides start talking. Graham said on
Tuesday it would be "madness" to dispatch police now.