#4692: Japan suspends aid to Haiti (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:nozier@tradewind.net

Monday, 24 July, 2000, 21:16 GMT 22:16 UK                             
Japan suspends aid to Haiti BBC NEWS

  Japan has announced that it has frozen its bi-lateral aid to Haiti
pending security guarantees to its aid workers. The Japanese Charge
d'Affaires in Port-au-Prince, Hisanobu Hasama said that Japan had frozen
some twenty-six million  dollars in aid, this year and next year.      
Mr Hasama told the French news agency, AFP, that the freeze was the
result of a report last   month that a cargo of vaccines from France    
was held up at Port-au-Prince international airport because of riots in
the capital following  legislative elections.  He said that a further
shipment of supplies scheduled for September would depend on security. 
Japanese aid to Haiti amounts to between   twelve and fifteen million
dollars a year, mainly in health and food supplies. Japan is the first
country to freeze aid to Haiti after international observers refused to
declare that the elections, in May, had been free and fair. The United
States, the European Union and  Canada have threatened to suspend
economic  aid if Haiti does not recount the votes.