19885: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald:Hold off transition, prime minister says (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Fri, Mar. 05, 2004


ARISTIDE'S DEPARTURE


Hold off transition, prime minister says

Haiti's prime minister calls for an investigation of how Jean-Bertrand
Aristide left the country. Aristide, meanwhile, wants to return.

BY JACQUELINE CHARLES AND MICHAEL A.W. OTTEY

jcharles@herald.com


Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune on Thursday said choice of a new prime
minister and a transition government should be delayed until allegations
about the resignation of Jean-Bertrand Aristide can be put to rest.

The former president, who remains in the Central African Republic, told a
French writer Thursday that he wants to return to Haiti but would go to
South Africa if he must.

Neptune, speaking by telephone from his office in Port-au-Prince, where he
is under U.S. Marines protection, told The Herald that if Aristide's
resignation this weekend occurred under duress, then it was not
constitutional.

His calls for an investigation and a delay of the current process echo those
of the Caribbean Community, which is demanding an international inquiry, and
Aristide himself, who on Thursday called for a U.S. congressional probe.

ARISTIDE'S CHARGE

Aristide has alleged that he was kidnapped and forced to resign as Haiti's
democratically elected president in a U.S.-inspired coup plot. U.S.
officials deny the claims.

''There should be an investigation,'' said Neptune, who said he learned of
Aristide's resignation only when provisional President Boniface Alexandre
presented him with Aristide's signed resignation.

Earlier this week a three-member commission was named as part of the plan to
choose a new prime minister.

Neptune named Leslie Voltaire, the minister for Haitians Living Abroad, to
represent the government and the Lavalas Family Party.

''I have no control over the process,'' Neptune said. ``It is my position
that . . . the process should be delayed.''

Ira Kurzban, a Miami lawyer who represents Aristide and the Haitian
government, meanwhile said Neptune is under pressure by the international
community to move quickly to help put a transition government in place in
Haiti.

`UNCONSCIONABLE'

''The process that is ongoing in Haiti right now should be stopped
immediately,'' Kurzban said at a news conference Thursday in Miami. ``The
pressure that is being put on the prime minister is unconscionable. The
demands to drive this thing as fast as possible to a fait accompli is
unconscionable.''

Kurzban said he was speaking on behalf of Aristide and the Haitian
government.

Agence France-Presse on Thursday reported that Aristide told Claude Ribbe, a
French writer and Haiti specialist, that he wants to return to Haiti and
that he would take a detour through South Africa if needed.

Kurzban declined to say whether he was negotiating with the South African
government to take in Aristide.

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