23793: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti PM orders arrest warrant against Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 12 (Reuters) - Haitian Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue said on Friday he ordered his justice minister to obtain an
arrest warrant on corruption charges against ousted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide.
     Latortue, installed as the head of an interim government after the
bloody rebellion that forced Aristide into exile in February, made the
announcement as he formed a committee to investigate possible
misappropriation of public funds and other acts of corruption by the
Aristide government.
     "I gave (Justice Minister Bernard Gousse) the order and I expect the
warrant to be issued," Latortue told reporters.
     Latortue and other Haitian officials have publicly accused Aristide of
corruption, but no charges have been filed and no evidence made public
against the former Roman Catholic priest, who remains hugely popular among
many of Haiti's poorest citizens.
     Under Haitian law, only judges have the power to issue arrest
warrants.
     Aristide, who led a populist uprising that helped oust the Duvalier
family dictatorship in the mid-1980s, first came to power in the poor
Caribbean nation in 1991 as its first freely elected president.
     Ousted by the military a few months later, he was returned to the
presidency by U.S.-led troops in 1994. Elected again in 2000, he was
accused of despotism and corruption and forced into exile in South Africa
after a revolt by street gangs and former soldiers and under pressure from
the United States and France.
     Latortue said if the warrant was not issued by Monday, he would write
to Gousse to renew the order and set a deadline. He said he had issued the
same order two months ago.
     "This is something we should have done a long time ago and the time
has come," said Latortue, calling on the international community,
particularly Washington and Paris, to cooperate with Haiti's interim
authorities in the fight against corruption.
     Latortue appointed a five-member investigative committee led by Paul
Denis, one of Aristide's fiercest opponents, to investigate the Aristide
government from the beginning of his term in February 2001 to his departure
on Feb. 29.
     Denis, a leader of the Democratic Convergence coalition of political
parties that opposed Aristide, vowed to carry out the investigation with
"order, method and impartiality."