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[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. E s s e r <torx@joimail.com>


Gonsalves  Challenges Caricom on Haiti

John Maxwell  August 5, 2004

Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of St. Vincent & the Grenadines, says
he has no intention of sitting down in the councils of Caricom with
any representative of the  so-called Government of Haiti. He says he
will not consider the presence of Haitian represntatation in Caricm
until certain minimum conditios are met –principally, the restoration
of democracy and the stabilisation of law and order.

Fanmi Lvalas and all other organisations must be free from
persecution and terror and must be free to operate within the limits
of the law. Criminals must be brought to justice.

 Gonsalves referred to a letter he received from the Caricom bureau
which has been examining  a report of foreign ministers who went to
Haiti recently of talks with La Tortue and others.

Gonsalves declared that he would not attend any meeting with
representatives of those who aided and abetted the forcible removal
of a lawfully elected President of Haiti by outside forces with the
help of thugs. .

Gonsalves was being interviewed on Drive Time Live,  a Jamaican radio
programme. He said that he knows that he is not alone among the Prime
Ministers of Caricom in the way he feels. He could however speak 
only for his own government and “Nobody is going to bulldoze me” he
said. Although he expects that many  people inside and outside the
Caribbean will be angered by his position he isn't worried by that
prospect.

Gonsalves says he is dealing with principle, and he will not deal
with anyone who aided and abetted those who forced a lawfully elected
president to surrender his position. He maintained hat President
Aristide had never resigned; that he simply told those who had come
to take him that if they wanted him to leave he would leave. That was
not a resignation.

Gonsalves said that he had supported the sending of a CARICOM
delegation to Haiti simply to preserve organisational  unity. He had
expected that the delegation  would  have brought  back a report
which would be discussed at a Caricom meeting at some future date.

The St Vincent Prime Minister said  the Bureau had  met and written
him and others that it wished to have answers by the sixteenth of
August. He was astounded by the speed with which the delegation’s
recommendation  for Haitian representation had been dealt with. The
bureau had even suggested that  Caricom could take such a decision
without meeting, simply by letters between the parties as provided
for by Article 21 of the Traty. He would not agree with this proposal.

Gonsalves says he is insisting on a full meeting to discuss the
matter. He would not be part of any ‘ false unity’ whatever the
motives. ,  The issue was of such  importance that “all must meet and
all must agree.”

The Caricom treaty was not  divisible. St. Vincent would not be
satisfied with anything  less than the restoration of democracy in
Haiti.

“The same way you can  force Aristide to resign is the same way you
can force Manning, Patterson or Gonsalves to resign.”