20892: radtimes: A Shameful Show in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: radtimes <resist@best.com>

A Shameful Show in Haiti

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/24/opinion/24WED2.html

Published: 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.

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