25300: Hermantin(news)Pro-Aristide group slams peacekeepers in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Jun. 06, 2005


ELECTIONS
Pro-Aristide group slams peacekeepers in Haiti
A U.S.-based group, the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network, said U.N. 
peacekeepers in Haiti are an occupation force impeding free elections.
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@herald.com

Haiti can have ''no peace, justice, democracy or fair elections'' while U.N. 
peacekeepers remain there, a group that backs former President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide said Sunday in a statement to the Organization of American States.

''There can be no fair and free elections in Haiti while it is under occupation 
by foreign forces and Haiti's fair and freely elected and constitutionally 
appointed government officials are all ousted from office, in exile, in prison 
or have been killed,'' said the New York-based, pro-Aristide Haitian Lawyers 
Leadership Network.

The OAS opened its annual General Assembly Sunday in Fort Lauderdale.

The three-day session is expected to focus largely on the defense of Latin 
American and Caribbean democracy.

Aristide signed a letter of resignation and left Haiti last year amid an armed 
revolt that he has branded a virtual coup and kidnapping orchestrated against 
him by the U.S. and French governments. New elections have been scheduled for 
later this year, but armed Aristide supporters demanding his return have been 
clashing with the 7,400-strong U.N. peacekeeping force.

''Fear, terror, murder will not make the . . . elections-to-come in Haiti 
legitimate, nor will fingerprinting Haitians [for voter registration] somehow 
make this scheduled election any more legitimate,'' said Marguerite Laurent, 
spokeswoman for the Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network.

''We urge the OAS, as a regional body dedicated to human rights and democratic 
ideals, to not only investigate the role of the U.S., France and Canada in 
bringing about the Feb. 29, 2004 coup d'état [against Aristide] but to take all 
necessary diplomatic steps to return to Haiti its democratically-elected 
government,'' the lawyers network's statement said.