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<font face="Trebuchet MS" size=3><br>
</font><h5><b>Proposition to end the crisis from the international
community: Aristide <br>
accepts it, the opposition drags its feet<br><br>
</b></h5><font face="Trebuchet MS" size=2><b>Port-au-Prince, February 21
2004 -(AHP)</b>- President Aristide fully accepted <br>
Saturday a proposal to end the crisis given to him the day before by the
<br>
international community to help find a peaceful solution to the Haitian
<br>
crisis.<br><br>
The Head of State gave his agreement to this plan after a meeting with
<br>
members of a delegation from the international community, notably leaders
<br>
from the United States, Canada, the OAS and CARICOM.<br><br>
In this plan, President Aristide stays for his entire constitutional
mandate <br>
which will end in February 2006. The opposition, who also received the
<br>
proposition to end the crisis, is still hesitating, giving itself until
Monday to <br>
provide its answer.<br><br>
However, sectors that are considered radical among this multiform <br>
opposition, notably organizations from the private sector, teachers
<br>
organizations, private media and students, declared separately that they
are <br>
against any dialogue and any plan to come out of the crisis. Indeed, in
<br>
parallel to the discussions, downtown in the capital, opposition
supporters, <br>
among whom were students, blocked traffic with flaming barricades and
<br>
threw volleys of stones against vehicles near the Social Sciences <br>
Faculty, a bastion for the anti-governmental opposition.<br><br>
Meanwhile, in Gonaïves, Buteur Metayer, one of the leaders of the
terrorist <br>
group spreading terror in the City of Independence and who claims to be
from <br>
the opposition, was wondering about his future. What will happen if the
two <br>
parties accept the peace plan, he wondered.<br><br>
After his meeting with foreign diplomats, President Aristide declared
that <br>
he accepted the plan, which also provides for the formation of an
increased <br>
council in charge of choosing a new prime minister and a new government
<br>
acceptable for the opposition.<br><br>
It isn’t said what the consequences of an eventual refusal from one party
or <br>
the other would be on the other party.<br><br>
The Haitian president explained that he accepted the nomination of a new
<br>
government in order to help a return to peace and reconciliation as soon
as <br>
possible in Haiti and also because the international community agreed to
<br>
help disarm “the rascals, the terrorists and the murderers”, pointing at
the <br>
terrorist groups who have been operating in Gonaives since February 5th
and <br>
murdered about sixty people, notably policemen.<br><br>
Canadian Minister of the French-speaking world Denis Coderre, who was
part <br>
of the delegation, also insisted on the need to disarm all those who
spread <br>
terror in Haiti. He declared that all parties must respect their
commitments <br>
in this plan that must be implemented before March 26.<br><br>
" We want to respect the Haitian constitution and therefore, it was
never an <br>
issue for us to try to overthrow a president who has been democratically
<br>
elected, he said, adding that the essential thing for them was to bring
back <br>
peace and democracy in Haiti.<br><br>
Opposition leaders, notably André Apaid junior continue to declare that
<br>
President Jean Bertrand Aristide is responsible for the violence in Haiti
<br>
because, they say, he distributed arms and created armed gangs to
terrorize <br>
the population and intimidate political parties.<br><br>
However, the armed gangs who spread death in Gonaïves and who were <br>
reinforced 8 days ago by members of the terrorist organization named
FRAPH, <br>
claim to be from the opposition platform. And despite the pressure from
the <br>
international community, the platform still refuses to condemn their acts
of <br>
violence.<br><br>
That is why American Secretary of State Colin Powell pointed out Saturday
<br>
that “it is time the opposition realizes that whether their demands are
<br>
legitimate or not, they will not be considered if it gets together with
<br>
rascals and murderers”.<br><br>
In Port-au-Prince, we fear that if the opposition refuses the new plan to
<br>
come out of the crisis, it will open the path to a new wave of violence.
The <br>
lethal attacks by opposition supporters in Gonaïves begun the day after
the <br>
platform of 184 refused CARICOM’s proposition to end the
crisis.<br><br>
Leader of a human rights organization Lovinski Pierre-Antoine accused the
<br>
opposition Saturday of deliberately provoking Friday’s violent acts to
<br>
create a tense situation in Haiti the day before the international
community's <br>
delegation arrived.<br><br>
About ten people, two of them journalists, were injured while volleys of
<br>
stones were thrown between opposition supporters and Lavalas supporters
<br>
after a street demonstration that wasn’t notified to the
police.<br><br>
We also fear that the opposition might provoke new violent acts to try to
<br>
justify an eventual refusal of this plan.<br><br>
<br>
</font><h5><b>AHP February 21 2004 6:35 PM<br><br>
</b></h5><font face="Trebuchet MS" size=2>_________________________________________________________________<br><br>
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