21128: Haiti Info: Haiti Arrests Ex-Aristide Minister Over Massacre (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Haiti Info <hainfo@starband.net>

Haiti Arrests Ex-Aristide Minister Over Massacre
Reuters
By Simon Gardner

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Haiti arrested the former interior
minister of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide Tuesday on charges of
coordinating a massacre during a bloody revolt that toppled the government,
the new justice minister said.

Former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert surrendered to police early
Tuesday after an arrest warrant was issued, becoming the first minister of
Aristide's fallen government to be detained.

The arrest came the day after Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web
sites) visited the poorest country in the Americas to pledge U.S. support
for the interim government -- which has been criticized by rights groups for
failing to arrest rebels accused of rights abuses.

"He surrendered himself this morning," Justice Minister Bernard Gousse told
Reuters, declining to comment when asked if arrest warrants had been issued
for other members of exiled Aristide's cabinet.

"It would be counterproductive to go into that at this time," he said."

Privert is accused of helping coordinate a massacre of political opponents
in the city of Saint-Marc, around 45 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, as
violence raged in the run up to Aristide's fall, Gousse said.

Members of Aristide's Lavalas Family party say they are the target of a
witch-hunt by rebels who led the revolt -- and still roam free -- and the
interim government of new Prime Minister Gerard Latortue.

Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune is in hiding after receiving death
threats from rebels, many of whom the government plans to incorporate into
the police force.

Gousse told Reuters in an interview last week it will be months before
Haiti's crippled police and judiciary, ravaged by the bloody rebellion in
which more than 200 people were killed, are rebuilt and ready to bring
accused rebels to justice.

With figures like notorious former paramilitary leader Louis Jodel
Chamblain, a convicted murderer who helped lead the bloody rebellion against
Aristide, still holding sway in the north, Gousse said he must tread a fine
line.

The government has, however, gone after supporters of Aristide, arresting
more than a dozen of his associates and issuing a blacklist banning dozens
more from leaving the country pending investigations of suspected graft.

Aristide, a former slum priest, was once widely viewed as a champion of
Haiti's democracy but had been increasingly accused of corruption and
political thuggery.