20701: Harvey: 2 BBC articles on Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Sean Harvey <seanharvey@juno.com>


1. Nigeria offers exile to Aristide
By Anna Borzello
BBC correspondent in Abuja, Nigeria

Former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been offered a temporary exile in Nigeria following a request by a group of Caribbean states. Jamaican Prime Minister PJ Patterson - Mr Aristide's current host - made the request on behalf of the group Caricom.

Mr Aristide, who left Haiti in late February, says he was forced out by the US. The US says he left voluntarily. Mr Aristide fled to the Central African Republic at the end of February after three weeks of running street battles.

'Tremendous pressure'

The statement issued by the Nigerian presidential office is brief and to the point. The Caribbean economic community, it says, under the leadership of Mr Patterson, requested Nigeria to consider giving Mr Aristide a staging post until his movement to another destination. Nigeria, the statement adds, undertook widespread consultations with African leaders, the African Union and the US government before agreeing to grant Caricom's request.

There is no indication when Mr Aristide will arrive in the country, how long he will stay or where he will be going next. However a senior Nigerian government official told the BBC the country had been under tremendous pressure to accept the proposal.

Host to exiles

He added that other countries in the region had elections to worry about - an apparent reference to South Africa.

Mr Aristide was ousted from power on 29 February. He spent over two weeks in the Central African Republic with his wife before flying to Jamaica to join his children. Prime Minister Patterson said that Jamaica decided to allow Aristide to stay for up to ten weeks. However there has until now been no indication of where he would be going next.

Nigeria has a history of hosting ousted leaders. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor has been living in exile in the south-eastern town of Calabar since August last year.

2. Haiti 'still not under control'
March 22 BBC

An international human rights group has called on multinational forces in Haiti to retake control of the north of the country. The US-based group Human Rights Watch says rebel forces are still active in Cap-Haitien, and irregular armed groups control the surrounding areas. "There rebels are clearly there, and clearly armed," it said.

More than 2,600 UN peacekeepers were sent to Haiti after the departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. On Sunday, the commander of the US-led multinational force in Haiti said his troops would not disarm rebels, despite earlier claims that this was an important move. "This is a country with a lot of weapons and disarmament is not our mission," US General Ronald Coleman told Reuters. "Our mission is to stabilise the country," he said.

Earlier this month, US marine Colonel Charles Gurganus told reporters in the capital, Port-au-Prince, that his men and the Haitian national police would "disarm men who are illegally armed" in public. "We will take as many weapons as we find on the street," he added.

Rule of law

Human Rights Watch's Joanne Mariner said rebel forces in Cap-Haitien were illegally detaining 16 journalists and former government officials sympathetic to Mr Aristide. There was an increasing sense of insecurity in the area, she said. "It has been three weeks since the peacekeepers arrived in Haiti, but the rule of law has yet to be re-established and there is no visible police presence," she said.

"The Haitian police and international forces need to assert control in these areas." She said the newly appointed police commissioner for the north of the country had fewer than 50 police officers. Many towns, including Saint Rafael and Port-de-Paix, remain no-go areas.

"The feeling is that the international force isn't enough to keep a lid on things, and local people don't feel secure, they don't feel it is safe to go out," said Oxfam's Ilana Benady in Cap-Haitien. "It is a situation of uncertainty, people with allegiances to the former government are still nervous."