20754: Durban: NY Times Editorial (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Lance Durban <lpdurban@yahoo.com>

Editorial comment from today's NY Times...

A Shameful Show in Haiti
March 24, 2004

Haiti, torn by weeks of unrest and decades of
misgovernment, badly needs its newly appointed prime
minister, Gérard Latortue, to succeed. Yet Mr. Latortue did
himself no favors on Saturday by going out of his way to
embrace some of the unsavory thugs who helped oust the
country's last elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Successive Haitian governments have compromised their own
legitimacy by using criminal gangs as enforcers. Mr.
Latortue needs to end this disastrous pattern, not
perpetuate it.

Mr. Latortue has no democratic mandate. Haitians are
bitterly split between Aristide supporters and opponents,
and both sides are heavily armed. Clearly, he needs to
reach out to those on both sides of this divide who want to
move their country forward. But Mr. Latortue aided neither
national reconciliation nor his own shaky legitimacy by the
unseemly ceremony he took part in last Saturday.

Ferried by American military helicopters to the city of
Gonaïves, where the anti-Aristide revolt began, he stood on
a stage with killers like Jean-Pierre Baptiste. Mr.
Baptiste, who escaped from prison in 2002, is a death squad
leader convicted of participating in a 1994 massacre of
Aristide supporters.

Also welcoming Mr. Latortue to Gonaïves was Guy Philippe,
the rebel military chief, who has yet to keep his promise
to American commanders to disarm his fighters. While there,
the prime minister unwisely paid tribute to Amiot Métayer,
the murdered founder of the Cannibal Army, an initially
pro-Aristide gang. In 2002, Mr. Métayer was jailed at the
behest of the Organization of American States. Freed by his
supporters the next month, he turned against President
Aristide and was later murdered. Mr. Métayer's followers
began the revolt that toppled the elected government.

Until Haiti can hold fair elections, Mr. Latortue derives
his authority from the American-led occupation force. His
mistakes damage not just his reputation, but Washington's
as well.