25240: Wharram - News - Haitian PM decries US security warning (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

>From Bruce Wharram <bruce.wharram@sev.org>

      Haitian PM decries US security warning
    (AFP)

    28 May 2005


    JACMEL, Haiti - Haiti’s Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has bitterly
objected after the US State Department instructed its non-emergency
personnel to leave his strife-torn Caribbean nation amid security concerns.

    “I object to this double standard policy. It’s a hard blow that the
Americans have dealt us,” Latortue said late Friday during a visit to the
southern city of Jacmel.

    “I don’t understand the game they are playing. It’s a regrettable
decision. Maybe the future will permit us to understand it,” he said. “It’s
at this moment that we need friends,” he added, as the impoverished nation
struggled to prepare for elections later this year.

    The US State Department on Thursday urged US citizens to leave Haiti or
not to travel there, amid violent crime including carjackings, kidnaps and
assault. It also said it had instructed non-emergency personnel at its
embassy in Haiti to leave the country.

    “Americans are reminded of the potential for spontaneous demonstrations
and violent confrontations between armed groups,” the State Department said
in a statement.

    “Visitors and residents must remain vigilant due to the absence of an
effective police force in much of Haiti,” it said.

    Possible looting, intermittent roadblocks set by armed gangs or by the
police, “and the possibility of random violent crime, including kidnapping,
carjacking and assault” were other reasons for extra care to be taken, it
said.

    “American citizens who remain in Haiti despite this warning are urged to
consider departing.”

    Violence remains Haiti’s number-one problem, nearly a year since a UN
stabilization mission landed in Haiti after former president Jean Bernard
Aristide was ousted.

    According to human rights groups, about 620 people have been killed in
Haiti since September.

    UN Secretary General Kofi Annan last week recommended reinforcing the UN
force in Haiti by around 1,000 troops ahead of upcoming municipal,
legislative and presidential elections scheduled between October and
December.