24905: Arthur (pub) Haitian minister promises elections despite violence (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Tttnhm@aol.com

Haitian minister promises elections despite violence

Andy Johnson - Trinidad & Tobago Express

Thursday, April 28th 2005

THERE are interest groups and individuals in Haiti who are opposed to the
holding of fresh elections and who are fomenting violence for which the interim
administration is being held responsible, Foreign Minister Herard Abraham has
charged.

He said, however, the government was bent on holding democratic elections and
having a constitutionally elected government in place by February next year.

A former Army Chief of Staff, General Abraham assumed duties as foreign
minister in Haiti two months ago.

Speaking during an interview on the TV6 Morning Edition Tuesay, he accused
supporters and partisans of ousted president Jean Bertrand Aristide, as being
behind much of the violence in that strife-torn country over the last 14 months,
since Aristide's ouster in February last year.

He arrived in Port of Spain Monday night at the head of a delegation for
talks with this country's Foreign Minister Knowlson Gift, before going on to
Barbados for talks with that country's foreign minister Billie Miller, the current
chairman of COFCOR, the Caricom council on foreign relations.

"My mission is not to let this issue of Caricom and Haiti become an
inheritance for the constitutional government," Abraham said. "I have pledged to do all
in my power to change that.

I intend to visit every country in Caricom to explain to them the situation
in Haiti and to combat the campaign of misinformation that is taking place, so
that the Caricom countries would better understand the situation and the
sincere objectives of the interim government."

Some of that misinformation, he said, was what lay behind the views being
held by some of the Caricom Heads of government who continue to stand in the way
of Haiti's re-entry into Caricom. Those relations were put on hold in the wake
of Aristide's ouster, with Caricom calling for an investigation into the
circumstances leading to his removal from office. That investigation has never
been officially initiated, however, after the US and France voiced strong
objections at the United Nations and the Caricom threat to take it to the permanent
council of the Organisation of American States also remains still-born.

General Abraham said in the interview Tuesday that the interim government,
led by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was fully engaged in and committed to the
creation of the right environment for staging the election, sometime in
October or November this year.

"It is difficult, but we are doing the best we can," he said, acknowledging
the violence which attends much of the activities of the government and other
groups in the society at present.

"There are Lavalas partisans who create the violence in Haiti and there are
people who are holding the government responsible for it. Most of the time the
violence is being fomented by funds coming from outside the country," he said,
after declaring that there were interests in his country who were opposed to
the holding of elections at all.

Lavalas is the party led by Aristide, and he said, the party's constitution
holds that Aristide is president for life, and that Aristide himself operated
on the basis that he should be President for life in Haiti. In that context, he
said, it was difficult to determine that party would participate in the
election, adding, however, that elements of that party were participating in the
process and were campaigning for the election.

Whether or not they would run as Lavalas or under a different name, was still
unclear, he said, adding that it was not true they were being prevented from
participating in the process.

He was supported in this view by Frantz Louis, a Haitian businessman who is
Trinidad and Tobago's Honorary Consul in Haiti and who accompanied him on the
visit to Port of Spain.

"I can give you the assurance that Lavalas is participating equally (in the
process), Abraham said, adding that the interim government wanted that party to
be represented in the CEP, the independent commission which will oversee
institutional arrangements for the staging of the election.