25966: Wharram - news - Six people said kidnapped every day in capital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: bruce.wharram@sev.org

Former legislator abducted in Haiti
Six people said kidnapped every day in capital
AP
Friday, August 12, 2005

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - A former legislator has been kidnapped in
Haiti's capital, the latest victim in a string of abductions that has added
to insecurity ahead of general elections planned for later this year, an
official said yesterday.

An average of six people are kidnapped per day in the capital, officials
say.

Kely Bastien, who presided over Haiti's lower house of Parliament from 1995
to 2000, was kidnapped on Tuesday while driving in Port-au-Prince, said Gary
Philoctete, the interim director of the international aid agency CARE in
Haiti.

Bastien is a physician who works for CARE. Relatives said his kidnappers are
demanding a US$200,000 (euro161,000) ransom for his release, private Radio
Kiskeya reported.
Judicial police chief Michael Lucius said authorities were investigating the
kidnapping, but he was unable to give details.

A one-time ally of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Bastien became
increasingly critical of his policies in the months prior to 2000
legislative elections. Bastien lost his parliamentary seat in the
controversial balloting, which he alleged was rigged by Aristide.

Bastien supported the rebellion by former pro-Aristide armed gangs and
members of the demobilised army that ousted Aristide in February, 2004.

The surge in kidnappings of poor and prominent Haitians, as well as
foreigners, is the latest trend in unrelenting violence that Haiti's interim
government says aims at preventing planned November and December elections.

Nearly 1,000 people have been slain in Haiti since September 2004, when
Aristide loyalists stepped up protests in Port-au-Prince to demand his
return from exile in South Africa, human rights groups say.