21111: (Chamberlain) Haiti to elect new leader in 2005; US vows support (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Arshad Mohammed and Simon Gardner

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 5 (Reuters) - Haiti vowed on Monday to hold
presidential elections in 2005, and visiting Secretary of State Colin
Powell pledged U.S. support to help the poorest country in the Americas
start over after a bloody revolt.
     Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue told a news conference with
Powell at Port-au-Prince's heavily guarded airport Haiti's next president
would take the reins in February 2006 -- when ousted ex-President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's term was originally due to end.
     Powell, the first high-ranking U.S. official to visit Haiti since
Aristide went into exile on Feb. 29, hit back at critics who say President
George W. Bush's administration failed to support the former leader and
pressured him to resign.
     He also rejected a call by the 15-nation Caribbean Community for a
probe into Aristide's ouster.
     "It was only six weeks ago that Haiti was on the verge of ... total
security collapse. On that last weekend in February, I believe we prevented
a bloodbath from happening," Powell said as soldiers patrolled nearby with
M-16s at the ready.
     "Our purpose is to help the people and leadership of Haiti make a new
beginning," he added, calling on armed gangs and rebels who led the revolt
against Aristide to lay down arms. "Without disarmament, Haiti's democracy
will remain at risk."
     Powell said he and Latortue had discussed "the importance of getting
guns off the street and ... out of the hands of thugs and criminals."
     The U.S. Secretary of State did not make clear if he was specifically
referring to the armed gangs and human rights violators who led the revolt.
Powell called them "thugs" before Aristide's overthrow, but Latortue has
since hailed them as "freedom fighters."
     Shortly before Powell's arrival, rights watchdog Human Rights Watch
urged him to pressure the new Haitian leaders into ensuring justice was
"even-handed" and not "political."
     "The contrast between the Haitian government's eagerness to prosecute
former Aristide officials and its indifference to the abusive record of
certain rebel leaders could not be more stark," said Joanne Mariner of its
Americas Division.
     U.S. Marines spearheading a 3,600-strong U.N.-sanctioned peacekeeping
force continued regular daily patrols around the slum-ridden capital, and
said all was calm.
     Downtown Port-au-Prince was paralyzed by the customary traffic
gridlock and street vendors laid out fruit and vegetables by gutters
flowing with raw sewage and trash near an AIDS clinic that Powell visited.
     Potshots at Marines by marauding street gangs have petered out in the
weeks following Aristide's overthrow. Locals greet patrols with smiles and
a "bonjour!," and say they feel safer.
     But former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, living in hiding after
receiving death threats, appealed to the United States to stamp out what
supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family party say is a witch-hunt against
them.
     "I call on the U.S. to guarantee the freedom of expression and
(political) association," Neptune said by phone.
     Aristide became Haiti's first freely elected leader in 1991 but was
pushed out by a coup. He was restored by a U.S.-led intervention in 1994
and won a second term in 2000.
     Accused by political foes of corruption and human rights violations,
he was pressured to leave Haiti by the United States and other nations
after the armed revolt broke out in February.