18946: Fw: Haiti: Monday deadline for peace deal (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <MaxBlanchet@worldnet.att.net>

From: <Tttnhm@aol.com>


Aristide, Haitian opposition given Monday deadline to accept peace deal

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 21 (AFP) - International mediators have given embattled
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and Haiti’s political opposition
three
days to accept a peace plan aimed at ending the country’s increasingly
violent political crisis, diplomatic sources said Saturday.

The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said diplomats from the
United States, Canada, France, the Caribbean Community and the Organization
of
American States delivered the ultimatum to Aristide and opposition leader
Andre
Apaid in meetings here Friday.

"They have until Monday to respond and, give or take a little slippage, we
expect them to respond by Monday," said one source familiar with the talks.
Higher-level diplomats from the plan’s sponsors were to arrive to reinforce
the
urgency of that message amid growing fears the western hemisphere’s poorest
country might succumb to anarchy.
(....)
In Washington, White House spokesman Scott McClellan confirmed Aristide
could
stay under the plan but declined to offer more details. The diplomatic
sources said a three-person panel -- one Aristide representative, an
opposition
member and an international official -- would select advisers who would name
a
prime minister and a new government. The plan pointedly excludes members of
the
armed insurgency. That prime minister would have direct authority over an
internationally trained and supervised police force, they said.

Both Aristide and the opposition must name their representatives by Monday
if
they intend to accept the deal, the sources said. The sources could not say
what would would happen if both, or either side, refused to agree. Aristide
has
thus far rejected giving his opponents a say in choosing a prime minister,
but one source said the president had given diplomats "no reason to believe
he
won’t accept the plan."

Of greater concern, the source said, is the possibility the opposition may
reject a proposal that keeps Aristide in office. "This is what we consider
to be
a difficult exercise," the source said. Opposition demands for Aristide’s
ouster have become more strident since the president dissolved the
legislature
and began ruling by decree in January amid a bitter fight over disputed
parliamentary elections two years ago.

Apaid, the leader of the so-called "Group of 184" opposition movement, was
expected to announce his intentions shortly after meeting with the visiting
delegation and just before the leader of the team, US Assistant Secretary of
State
for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, speaks, officials said.

One of the opposition’s chief concerns is the disarming of pro-Aristide
gangs
such as the one that opened fire on about 1,000 student demonstrators Friday
in Port-au-Prince, wounding 14, including two journalists -- one foreign,
one
Haitian. Also complicating the situation is the presence of the armed
insurgents -- many of them ex-soliders in Haiti’s army, which Aristide
disbanded in
1995 after a coup -- who have been mounting hit-and-run raids on Haitian
cities
since February 5, when they captured Gonaives.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell and others have vowed not to deal with
the
rebels and warned Aristide’s political opponents not to associate with them
simply because they share the goal of ousting him. "This is the time for the
opposition to recognize that whatever their legitimate complaints may or may
not
be, they will not be dealt with if they fall in league or get under the same
umbrella with thugs, murderers," Powell told the Knight-Ridder newspaper
chain.

______________________________________________


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