21553: (Chamberlain) Aristide party rejects Haiti election role (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 26 (Reuters) - The political party of
ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said on Monday it would not
take part in a council charged with organizing new elections because of
continuing persecution.
     U.S.-backed interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue hopes to name a new
nine-member electoral commission by Saturday to run elections in 2005 to
pick a new president and parliament.
     Aristide went into exile on Feb. 29 in the face of an armed revolt,
but his Lavalas Family political party, which remains popular among Haiti's
poor, said Latortue's administration had failed to halt a "witch hunt"
against its members.
     "How can they expect us to participate when our members cannot gather,
when they are persecuting us and killing us?" party spokesman Gilvert
Angervil told Reuters.
     Latortue and Justice Minister Bernard Gousse and have denied
allegations of political persecution.
     Eight pro-government parties and civil organizations, all opposed to
Aristide, have already chosen their representatives.
     Convicted death squad boss Louis Jodel Chamblain, one of the military
leaders of the bloody revolt, handed himself in to police last week in what
he called a demonstration of the anti-Aristide forces' commitment to
justice and democracy.
     Lavalas on Monday hosted a gathering on the outskirts of
Port-au-Prince of about 100 party members who said they had been forced to
flee provincial towns in fear of their lives.
     Josette Telfort, 26, a mother of two, said four men in camouflage she
believed were former soldiers had broken into her house in the town of
Hinche and shot to death her husband, Elie Telfort, and cousin, Jacky
Jean-Baptiste.
     "One said, 'Where are the chimeres?' And they shot several times," she
said, using the Creole word for the gangs critics say Aristide armed in
order to enforce loyalty.
     "I could not even cry. They told me to shut my mouth. They were not
chimeres, but just supporters of President Aristide."
     Residents said rebels who have yet to be disarmed by a 2,500-member
U.S.-led peace force burned down the Lavalas Family headquarters in Hinche
on Sunday.