a779: BBC: Haiti: Party leader Paul calls arrests of his supportersa Lavalas "plot" (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Haiti: Party leader Paul calls arrests of his supporters a Lavalas "plot"
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 14, 2002


The leader of the Convention for Democratic Unity [KID], Evans Paul, has
rejected all the accusations that the police have brought against his
party's supporters within the framework of the arrests that took place
during Carnival. Paul believes that the information that the police are
providing on the involvement of his supporters in kidnapping operations is a
frame-up. Paul thinks that the wave of arrests shows President Aristide's
refusal to facilitate the resumption of the negotiations in order to get the
country out of the impasse.
[Paul - recording, in Creole] It is a manoeuvre to try to discredit the
party. And everybody who is following political events this week can
understand why, immediately after my participation in the event in
Washington, they are trying to carry out a frame-up. I want to let the
public know that there is a series of spies that the police have employed to
carry out manoeuvres.
We are aware that there is a certain man named Apollon who was driving the
car in which they arrested the KID militants in the Cine Capitol area. That
man was actually sent by the police to the KID premises. Now I would like
the police to tell us who that Apollon was and where he is now, because we
find it strange that they arrested seven people in total but only five of
them are in prison. Nothing has been said about the driver who is the main
individual concerned and who gave a ride to the other men.
We want to point out that [journalist] Bruno Edgard's arrest is part of the
same plot. Edgard was ill and his political colleague [former deputy Jean]
Mandenave went to see him. He (?then) gave a lift to Apollon and it is that
same person who led the police to Edgard's house later on so they could
arrest him.
So, we are aware of the manoeuvres that are taking place and we shall be
making appropriate decisions. We shall provide more details on the
situation, on the plot that the Lavalas regime is staging in order to spread
more confusion in the country and to justify the repression against several
political leaders.
Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 14 Feb 02
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.