25407: (news) Chamberlain: Haitian Justice Minister Gousse resigns (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, June 15 (Reuters) - Haiti's justice minister
will submit his resignation on Friday, amid criticism over the jailing of
the country's former prime minister, government sources said on Wednesday.
     Justice and Public Safety Minister Bernard Gousse wrote the
resignation letter on Tuesday and was expected to deliver it to interim
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue on Friday, officials told Reuters.
      A source close to Haiti's interim government said "the resignation
will be accepted, because it had already been agreed upon between the
president and the prime minister that there would be a change at this
level."
     Latortue said in a news conference on June 3 that he would make
important changes within Haiti's security apparatus, in which the justice
minister plays a key role.
     Gousse said in his resignation letter he was proud of his
"contribution in the aftermath of the fall of a dictatorship," referring to
the government of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. He
promised to continue to "fight for the establishment of a truly independent
judicial power" in Haiti.
     Gousse's decision came a few days after a group of Democratic U.S.
lawmakers wrote to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and urged her
to press for Gousse's departure. They said Haiti's justice system was so
politicized against Aristide supporters that it was "a sham."
     Many believe Gousse's resignation could make way for former Haitian
Prime Minister Yvon Neptune's release from jail. Neptune, who served under
Aristide, has been jailed for nearly a year on charges he called
politically motivated.
     He was accused of planning what Aristide opponents called a massacre
in the village of La Scierie St. Marc north of Port-au-Prince in February
2004. Neptune has denied the allegations and a U.N. human rights
investigator said the deaths resulted from confrontations between armed
pro- and anti-Aristide groups during the revolt that drove Aristide into
exile.
     Critics said Gousse, who is a member of the anti-Aristide political
opposition Group of 184, was responsible for the arrests and arbitrary
detention of hundreds of members and supporters of Aristide's Lavalas
Family party.
     The Lawyers Committee for Individual Rights, a rights group known as
CARLI, said Gousse's resignation "is a good thing for the cause of justice
in the country."
     "All Gousse had done was a wave of arbitrary arrests and detention,"
Renan Hedouville, the head of CARLI, said on Wednesday. "The police, placed
under the supervision of Mr. Gousse, are responsible for a number of
summary executions, and all those crimes have gone unpunished."
     Several Aristide opponents said Gousse had done a good job trying to
crack down on violent armed supporters of the deposed government, and
criticized what they called foreign interference.
     "It is deplorable that a Haitian minister is forced to resign in order
to satisfy the interests of foreign sectors who want him to violate the
law," said Samuel Madistin, a lawyer for several people who blamed their
relatives' deaths on Neptune.
     He said the justice minister is not a judge and has no authority to
either arrest or free Neptune.
     United Nations peacekeepers were sent to Haiti last year to restore
order and are still struggling to quell violence that threatens autumn
elections to replace the interim government.