24868: Hermantin (News) Aristide ally blasts U.S. policy, officials

[sak-pase@bimini.ws]

leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Sat, Apr. 23, 2005


HAITIAN POLITICS
Aristide ally blasts U.S. policy, officials
Haitian priest and former Miami activist the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste said two 
top U.S. diplomats need to resign amid reports the United States sold arms 
to Haiti.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

Saying the Haitian people need food, not bullets, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste 
on Friday demanded the resignation of two top U.S. State Department 
officials he accused of helping to arm Haiti's interim government.

The demands by the popular Haitian Catholic priest came at a time when he 
faces increased pressure by Haiti's Roman Catholic Church to tone down his 
political rhetoric. It also comes amid speculation that he will be a 
candidate in the country's Nov. 13 presidential elections.

Well-known in Miami circles, Jean-Juste is quickly becoming a prominent 
presence on Haiti's political scene, wielding considerable influence with 
loyalists of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and being a thorn in 
the side of the current U.S.-backed Haitian government.

''The Bush administration is secretly and illegally arming the de facto 
Haitian government,'' Jean-Juste said at a news conference in Little Haiti.

To Washington's consternation, several nations, including the Caribbean 
Community, refused to recognize the installation of interim Prime Minister 
Gerard Latortue following the 2004 ouster of Aristide as a rebellion 
threatened to engulf Haiti's capital, Port-au-Prince. Jean-Juste insists 
Aristide is Haiti's legitimate president. Now in exile, Aristide himself 
insists he never resigned, as claimed by Washington.

Jean-Juste called for the resignation of Roger Noriega, assistant secretary 
of state for Latin America, and John Bolton, undersecretary of state for 
arms control. Bolton is the Bush administration's nominee for United Nations 
ambassador.

Officials at the U.S. State Department could not immediately be reached by 
phone for comment late Friday.

Jean-Juste's accusations about illegal arms sales came a day after The 
Associated Press, quoting anonymous State Department and U.N. officials, 
reported that the United States has quietly sold 2,000 used firearms to the 
Haitian police force.

State Department officials are preparing to ask Congress to lift a 14-year 
arms embargo against Haiti, the AP said.

''They have enough arms,'' said Jean-Juste, who wants to meet with U.S. 
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to discuss Haiti's deteriorating 
security. ``They are killing Haitians who are demonstrating peacefully.''

In recent weeks, police backed by U.N. peacekeepers have clashed with armed 
gangs in the sprawling Port-au-Prince slum known as Cité Soleil.

Speaking at the Little Haiti headquarters of Veye Yo, the pro-Aristide 
grass-roots group he founded, Jean-Juste showed a video of an April 12 
funeral he presided over in Cité Soleil.

Thousands of mourners attended the service for victims of recent political 
violence.

''Cité Soleil is becoming a concentration camp,'' Jean-Juste claimed. ``The 
U.N. troops and Haitian police have surrounded Cité Soleil . . . harassing 
the population, shooting over their heads.''

On Thursday, Jean-Juste and other Haiti-based clergy were issued a sharp 
warning by the church hierarchy.

The Episcopal Conference of Haiti prohibited priests from political 
activities and warned that sanctions -- including defrocking -- could result 
if they disobey.

The firebrand Jean-Juste acknowledged that he is walking a fine line as he 
ministers in a nation where people die almost every day of starvation and 
violence.

The ''church should be on the side of the oppressed,'' he insisted.

''It's not a matter of being involved in politics,'' he added. ``It's a 
matter of, as Dr. Martin Luther King would say, if we don't help these 
people, what is going to happen to them?''