21670: (Chamberlain) Aristide's party snubs Haiti election council (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, May 3 (Reuters) - Former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's political party has not nominated anybody for a
panel that will organize elections next year in Haiti, citing abuses
against the party since Aristide fled the country.
     The government issued an executive order on Monday naming eight
members of what should be a nine-member panel that will run the voting in
the troubled Caribbean country, where Aristide was forced out of office in
February by an armed revolt and U.S. and French pressure to quit.
     Former parish priest Aristide's Lavalas Family party, still angry at
his departure, did not nominate anyone to the panel, made up of
representatives of political and social groups.
     The party said it would not designate a representative until the
government investigates what Lavalas says are arbitrary arrests of members,
and persecution of party supporters by former anti-Aristide rebels.
     "After the brutal interruption of the democratic process in Haiti, the
Lavalas Family party cannot name a representative under such conditions,"
said Jonas Petit, a spokesman for Lavalas. "We won't do so until the
government puts an end to the killing, persecutions, illegal arrests, and
destruction of personal property of our members and supporters," he told
reporters.
     Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said that a place on the panel would
remain open for a short time for Lavalas if the party decided to nominate
somebody, but he did not say if he would agree to Lavalas demands.
     "We want to show Lavalas that we are democrats, they are the ones who
have always been excluding people ... they now want to exclude themselves,"
Latortue said.
     Latortue, who heads a U.S.-backed interim administration that is
expected to hand over to a new government after the parliamentary and
presidential elections next year, added that if Lavalas did not nominate
somebody then a ninth member from another group would be appointed to the
panel.
     Aristide, who championed Haitian democracy in the 1980s after decades
of dictatorship, ended his second term two years early and went into exile
when armed rebels closed in on the capital of the country of 8 million
people in February.
     The revolt capped months of protests by his political foes, who
accused him of becoming increasingly autocratic and relying on armed thugs
to shore up support.
     But Aristide followers, many of them from the country's poor majority
who viewed the ex-president as their savior, believe he was forced out of
office by the United States and France and should be allowed to return.