25558: Chamberlain: (news) Haiti-Election Dilemma (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 1 (AP) -- A kidnapped international Red Cross
worker was found shot to death, the organization said Friday, expressing
its concerns about escalating violence that threatens elections to replace
ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   "Elections are the bridge to democracy," trumpets a slogan to persuade
frightened Haitians to vote.
   Crossing that bridge is proving anything but easy.
   Daily killings and kidnappings, dismally low voter registration and
logistical snags are forcing election organizers to consider tough choices,
including suggestions of delaying the balloting in some areas.
   Joel Cauvin, a Haitian employee of the International Committee of the
Red Cross, was abducted Wednesday evening and found dead near his home the
next day, the committee said Friday.
   The Geneva-based organization said it was "extremely concerned about the
growing insecurity in Haiti."
   Cauvin's family had been negotiating a ransom with his captors when
talks abruptly and inexplicably broke off, said Wolde Saugeron, an ICRC
spokesman in Haiti.
   U.N. peacekeepers said they freed a kidnapped woman in a raid Wednesday,
and local Radio Metropole identified the victim as a worker for the Haitian
Red Cross.
   "Until the people of Haiti can walk outside of their homes in peace,
they cannot be expected to vote," said Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., who
has called for a delay in Haiti's polls until security is restored.
   The U.S. House of Representatives refused to support her appeal this
week.
   Nearly 7,000 local and regional posts are up for grabs Oct. 9, and
elections for president and 129 legislators are slated for Nov. 13.
   So far, just 200,000 of Haiti's 4.5 million eligible voters -- fewer
than 5 percent -- have registered, with about a month left until
registration ends. Only 100 of 424 planned voter registration sites have
opened, though another 117 centers are supposed to open soon, according to
the Provisional Electoral Council.
   The U.N. special envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, said it was
unrealistic to expect a flawless process.
   "These are not Austrian elections, these are Haitian elections," Valdes
said. "These elections are not going to be in a country which is in
absolute tranquility."
   Valdes predicted more Haitians would register in coming weeks and
rejected calls for postponement, saying: "There is no alternative to
elections except chaos."
   Almost daily shootouts in the densely populated slums of Port-au-Prince
are frustrating a 7,400-member U.N. peacekeeping force and keeping skittish
residents from registering. Hundreds -- including several foreigners --
have been kidnapped for ransom in recent months.
   Most violence is blamed on well-armed street gangs loyal to Aristide,
who fled Haiti amid a February 2004 revolt. Aristide partisans say they are
victims of killings and other atrocities by Haiti's police.
   More than 700 people have been slain since September, when Aristide
supporters stepped up calls for his return from exile in South Africa.
   The bloodshed has rekindled fears of a repeat of 1987 elections in which
hundreds of people were killed in the run-up and balloting was aborted in a
bloodbath when soldiers and allied militia gunned down 34 people at a
polling station.
   Looking to their security, few candidates have announced they will run.
   "What is happening in Port-au-Prince doesn't make people want to come
out and register," said Rosemand Pradel, secretary-general of the
Provisional Electoral Council, which suffered a grenade attack in March.
   He said the council is trying to extend the registration period until
the end of August and has not ruled out postponing October local elections
"as a last resort."
   Pradel also suggested that elections in the pro-Aristide slums of Cite
Soleil and Bel-Air -- home to several hundred thousand people -- could be
delayed until the areas "cool down."
   Dan Erikson, a Haiti expert with the Washington-based think tank
Inter-American Dialogue, said ongoing slum violence shows that what he
called peacekeepers' "kid gloves" strategy of handling gangs "is clearly
not working."
   "The possibility for good elections in Haiti decreases with every day
that the security situation remains unchecked," Erikson said.
   The U.N. Security Council this month approved an additional 1,000 troops
and police to help secure elections.
   Rising violence prompted the U.S. Peace Corps to evacuate its 16
volunteers earlier this month, three months after the U.S. Embassy ordered
nonessential personnel to leave. On Tuesday, the embassy announced it was
scaling back consular services because of the violence and would only offer
U.S. entry visas for students and medical emergencies.
   Most Haitians remain wary.
   "Yes, I'm scared. ... I don't know if it's worth risking my life just to
vote," student Yvanne Chalmen, 19, said after registering at a downtown
center guarded by three men with shotguns.
   Frantz Isidor, a 42-year-old bus driver, doubted he would register and
said there still was not a place to do so near his home.
   "I really don't know how we're going to have elections," Isidor said.
"Unless it's just going to be a smoke screen and the next day we're going
to wake up and hear on the radio who won."