Probing Aristide's loss of power - a CARICOM 'priority'
By Rickey Singh
Guyana Chronicle
March 7, 2004
BRIDGETOWN - The Caribbean Community will shortly formally request Secretary General Kofi Annan for the United Nations to launch a probe into the circumstances of the dramatic loss of power by Haiti's President Jean Bertrand Aristide.
CARICOM's Chairman, Prime Minister P. J. Patterson of Jamaica, told the Sunday Chronicle yesterday that he could not properly discuss at this time the strategy of this initiative to involve the UN but said that regional foreign and legal affairs officials were advising on the matter which remains of "grave importance" to the Community.
But the Community, it was learnt, was determined to pursue the matter of the probe as "a priority issue".
The decision to request an independent international probe, under UN auspices, into how President Aristide came to suddenly resign and flee into exile a week ago today, was made at last week's emergency summit of CARICOM leaders in Kingston, Jamaica.
Patterson said he was aware of reports that President George Bush's Administration was rejecting pressures at home for an investigation into Aristide's loss of power, and also of arrangements being pursued in Haiti to establish an interim regime.
However, he said, he did not wish to comment at this stage on either the U.S. reaction or what's taking place inside Haiti for an interim administration.
At a special briefing session he held Friday with newly appointed Special Advisor to the UN Secretary General on Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago's former diplomat and head of the public service, Reginald Dumas, Patterson made clear that CARICOM's proposed 'Action Plan' on Haiti, submitted before Aristide was removed from office, should not be confused with what's now taking place in Port-au-Prince.
Further, that in the present situation, CARICOM was not prepared to participate in any form with the Multilateral International Force (MIF) now in Haiti, but would be willing to cooperate with a follow-up United Nations-approved multilateral 'Stabilisation Force' in three months time.
Patterson, who provided Dumas with the background to CARICOM's intervention efforts to resolve the political crisis in Haiti before the forced resignation of Aristide last Sunday, said that the Community's next move on post-Aristide Haitian relations should be forthcoming at an Inter-
Sessional Meeting now scheduled for St. Kitts-Nevis for March 25-26.
Originally, the meeting was carded for St. John's, Antigua, but in view of that country's March 23 general elections, the Community Secretariat was advised to switch to Basseterre, St. Kitts.
Meanwhile, in Haiti, where troops from the U.S.A, France, Canada and Chile are on duty, a three-member committee of 'eminent persons' has been established to select, by consensus, a seven-member council of 'Wise Men' to begin the process of finding a new Prime Minister to replace the incumbent Yvon Neptune, appointee of the deposed Aristide.
The nominee for new Prime Minister is to be submitted within the next two days to interim President, Boniface Alexandre, who was reportedly appointed by Aristide shortly before he was forced to leave the Presidential Palace and flown into exile.
Yesterday, according to a news report out of Bangui, capital of the Central African Republic, Aristide was quoted as saying that if he gets to South Africa, it would only be "a stop on his way to Haiti where I belong".
Reiterating that he was the victim of "a coup plot" involving the U.S.A. and France, Aristide said: "I am not the kind of person to stay in exile."