24132: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti government won't talk to Aristide directly-PM (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan 22 (Reuters) - Haiti's interim prime
minister said on Saturday his government would not talk directly with
former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, but he welcomed foreign efforts to
persuade the ousted leader to help end violence in the country.
     Gerard Latortue said the government would not send any envoy to meet
directly with the exiled leader, contrary to what he had been interpreted
as saying on Friday.
     Aristide is living in South Africa after being forced out of power
last February by an armed revolt and U.S. and French pressure to quit. The
interim Haitian government wants him to try to calm his angry supporters in
the Caribbean country.
     "We encourage all Haiti's friends who want to take initiatives toward
that goal (to meet Aristide) to do so, but we are not doing it ourselves,"
Latortue told Reuters in an interview on Saturday.
     "We know that there are many friendly countries and international
organizations that have taken initiatives to tell Aristide to take it easy
or to tell President (Thabo) Mbeki to control president Aristide," said
Latortue. He called on the South African government to prevent Aristide
from using its territory to destabilize Haiti.
     Embittered Aristide supporters, many of them from Haiti's poorest
slums, have clashed with their foes in a violent cocktail that includes
disgruntled former rebels. Violence between pro- and anti-Aristide forces
has killed at least 240 people since September.
     Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police are trying to
establish order ahead of elections meant to be held this year that would
usher in a new government in 2006.
     Latortue spoke a day  after local Radio Tropic FM aired a statement in
which he mentioned an envoy who would "meet with Mbeki and Aristide (in
Pretoria) so that they may say how they see the situation and give the
country a chance."
     Politicians opposed to Aristide strongly criticized Latortue for the
comments, saying he was seeking to negotiate with a man they accuse of
despotism and corruption.
     Latortue said the envoy he was talking about was an African Union
emissary, Alpha Oumar Konare, who visited Haiti recently to assess the
situation.
     "When Mr Konare came to Haiti he told us as he left that he was going
to meet with President Mbeki as well as with Aristide. He told us he was
for the success of the transition," Latortue said.
    Since Aristide's ouster, relations between Haiti's interim government
and South Africa have been tense. South African authorities believe
Aristide, a democratically elected leader, was forced from power.
     South African Vice President Jacob Zuma, who was attending a U.N.
summit on small island states in Mauritius last week, said then that South
Africa was ready to participate in efforts to resolve Haiti's political
turmoil, if asked to do so.
     Rights groups have accused Haiti's interim authorities of serious
human rights abuses against Aristide allies and supporters, which the
government has denied.