25776: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti official accuses Aristide backers in murder (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, July 21 (Reuters) - A government minister
speaking at the funeral on Thursday of a Haitian journalist kidnapped and
killed this month blamed the slaying on supporters of ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     Jacques Roche, head of the culture section of the Haitian daily
newspaper Le Matin, was abducted on July 10. His mutilated body was found
last Thursday on a street in Port-au-Prince.
     During a speech at the end of the funeral in Petion-Ville, a suburb of
the capital, Haitian Culture Minister Magalie Comeau Denis said armed gangs
loyal to Aristide killed Roche to back demands the former president return
to Haiti.
     Aristide was forced to flee the country on Feb. 29, 2004, in the face
of an armed revolt and U.S. and French pressure to quit. His administration
was replaced by a U.S.-backed interim government.
     "They killed Jacques and abandoned his body on the streets for all of
us to see, in order to frighten us," Denis said from the church's pulpit.
"We are not afraid. We will never be afraid."
     Denis accused Aristide's Lavalas Family party of trying to disrupt the
electoral process. The interim government plans to hold national elections
in the fall.
     "If they killed Jacques for the elections not to take place, they are
mistaken, because they will take place," Denis said.
     A spokesman for Aristide's party, James Derozin, rejected any attempt
to link Lavalas to the killing.
     "If anyone committing violence and other criminal activities claims he
is a member of Lavalas Family, we say it is not true," Derozin said. "Those
who believe in violence are our opponents, because they used violence to
overthrow President Aristide, a democratically elected leader."
     A group of Aristide opponents attacked a leading figure in Aristide's
Lavalas Family party, Father Gerard Jean-Juste, as he arrived at the church
to pay tribute to the slain journalist. He was led to safety by Haitian
police and U.N. peacekeeping troops.