[Marxism] HAITI: Abounding Inconsistencies

[Chris Brady <cdbrady@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

            Abounding Inconsistencies

Quoted from the following Reuters report (that is provided in full):

"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 . . . .
it will be months before Haiti's crippled police . . . .
are rebuilt and ready to bring accused rebels to justice."


Haiti Arrests Ex-Aristide Minister Over Massacre

Haïti-Info, 7 avril 2004

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 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.

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