[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

25608: Brianhaiti: (reply) Fwd: Half-Hour for Haiti: Urge the OAS to Apply Its Own Principles to Haiti (fwd)




From: Brianhaiti@aol.com


July  6, 2005
Half-Hour  for Haiti: Urge the OAS to  Apply Its Own Principles to Haiti

Thanks  to everyone who last week urged the UN to release its report on the
December 1,  2004 prison massacre.  This weekâ??s  action addresses another
international organization that has failed to live up  to its stated
principles
with respect to Haiti, the  Organization of American States (OAS).
The  OASâ??s Secretary General, José Miguel Insulza,  is in Port-au-Prince
this
week for a three-day  visit.  The visit affords Mr.  Insulza an opportunity
to see how far Haiti is from the democratic  governance required of OAS Member
States.  It affords us an opportunity to remind Mr. Insulza that the OAS has
not  fulfilled its obligations under the OAS Charter and its Inter-American
Democratic Charter, to take action to restore democracy in Haiti.
The OAS Charter, the organizationâ??s â??Constitution,â?? declares in its
third
phrase that â??representative democracy is an indispensable condition for the
stability, peace and development of the region.â??   The organizationâ??s
essential
 purposes, listed in Article 2, include â??to promote and consolidate
representative democracy,â?? and â??to provide for common action on the part
of  [Member]
States in the event of aggression.â??  Article 3 declares that â??[a]n act of
aggression against one American State is an act of aggression against all  the
other American States.â??
The OASâ?? Inter-American Democratic Charter contains mechanisms for
responding to the overthrow of a democratic government.   Article 19 of the
Charter
calls  â??an unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regimeâ?? an â??
insurmountable  obstacleâ?? to a countryâ??s participation in OAS activities.
In the
event of such an unconstitutional  alteration, Article 20 allows members to
ask
the Permanent Council to take  measures â??to foster the restoration of
democracy.â??  Article 21 allows for a vote to suspend  a member if these
measures fail.
Secretary-General Insulza will find a Haiti that has  suffered an â??
unconstitutional alteration of the constitutional regimeâ?? by any  standard.
Its
representative,  democratic government was overthrown on February 29, 2004 by
an
armed uprising, â??an act of  aggression.â??  The country is ruled  by a Prime
Minister appointed through a procedure with no constitutional or  electoral
basis.
Even if the  interim government had been legally established, the
Constitution required it to  hold replacement elections by June 1, 2004.
After sixteen months, the Interim Government of Haiti (IGH)  Haiti is no
closer to relinquishing  power to a democratic government than when it
started.
The IGHâ??s declarations insist that  elections will be held in October,
November
and December, but its actions have  ensured that there will be no democratic
elections this year.  Voter registration is supposed to close  on August 9,
but less than 5% of eligible voters have registered.  The IGH reduced the
number
of voting  registration offices from more than 12,000 to 424 on paper, but in
practice has  only opened about 100, none of them in the countryâ??s most
densely populated  neighborhoods.
The IGH refuses to fulfill the reasonable condition imposed by the Lavalas
party for participating in the  elections, that the IGH stop persecuting its
leaders and supporters.  Lavalas has won a landslide victory in  every Haitian
election for the last fifteen years.  Several top Lavalas officials, and
hundreds of  supporters, have been illegally imprisoned for over a year.  Many
of
these sit in prison despite  having been ordered freed by judges for lack of
evidence.  The Haitian police routinely conduct  murderous operations in the
poor
neighborhoods considered Lavalas bastions, or shoot into peaceful
anti-government demonstrations.
Almost half of the OASâ?? thirty-four members have pushed the organization  to
respond to this interruption of the democratic order: the fourteen members of
the Caribbean Community and Venezuela have called for an  investigation into
the February 2004 coup dâ??etat.  In June 2004, the OAS General Assembly
considered the matter but declined to investigate the coup.  It did invoke the
Inter-American  Democratic Charter, and resolved to â??take all necessary
diplomatic
initiatives,  including good offices, to foster full restoration of democracy
in  Haiti.â??   Those initiatives could have been  a step towards suspending
Haiti from OAS membership, but a year later there  is no sign that the OAS is
contemplating any meaningful sanctions on  Haitiâ??s rogue  regime.
Action:  Fax or Write  to OAS Secretary-General José Miguel  Insulza, urging
him to ensure that the Inter-America Democratic Charter is  applied to Haiti.
A sample letter is below.  As always, feel free to use the whole  letter or
adapt it as you see fit.
______________________________________________________________
Fax No. 202-458-3967
José Miguel Insulza, Secretary-General
Organization of American States
17th  Street  & Constitution Avenue,  NW
Washington,  DC, 20006
Dear Mr. Insulza:
I appreciate that you took the time to travel to Haiti and assess  the
conditions there.  I also thank  you for your public reiteration that the OAS
should
be promoting and maintaining  democracy in the Americas.
As you saw during your visit, Haiti has had â??an unconstitutional  alteration
of the constitutional regimeâ?? by any standard.  An honest analysis reveals
that the  Interim Government of Haiti (IGH) has no constitutional or electoral
basis and  is no closer to handing power to a democratic government than when
it
arrived  sixteen months ago.  The IGHâ??s  declarations insisting on elections
this year are not matched by its actions- a  month before the close of voter
registration less than 5% of voters have  registered, less than 25% of
registration centers are even open.  The IGH continues to persecute officials
of the
ousted constitutional regime, supporters of the Lavalas government and
political  dissidents: many have been killed, hundreds of others sit in jail
with no
formal  charges against them, or with a judicial liberation order that the IGH
refuses  to execute.
Before your arrival as Secretary-General, the OAS missed an historic
opportunity to fulfill its Charterâ??s promise that  â??[a]n act of aggression
against
one  American State is an act of aggression against all the other American
States,â??  by refusing to come to the aid of Haitiâ??s constitutional
government
when it was  under attack in early 2004.  Since  then, the OAS has ignored the
Inter-American Democratic Charterâ??s insistence  that â??an unconstitutional
alteration of the constitutional regimeâ?? is an  â??insurmountable
obstacleâ?? to a
countryâ??s participation in OAS activities.
I urge you to use your leadership to ensure that from now on the OAS  stands
by its fundamental principles, and supports democracy in  Haiti.  The
organization should fully implement  the Inter-American Declaration by
suspending Haiti
â??s  unconstitutional government from OAS activities.  You should publicly
denounce the IGHâ??s  persecution of its political opponents; initiate an
investigation of  Haitiâ??s February, 2004 coup  dâ??etat as requested by the
CARICOM
countries and Venezuela, and work for the immediate restoration  of Haitiâ??s
constitutional  government.
Sincerely,
___________________
For more information:
Half Hour For Haiti Program:
http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_halfhourforhaiti.htm
The  Organization of American States: _www.oas.org_ (http://www.oas.org/)
The OAS and Haiti:
http://www.ijdh.org/articles/article_law-and-politics_oas-and-haiti.html

----- End forwarded message -----