Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

POLITICS-HAITI: Region’s Leaders Condemn "Deteriorating" Rights

Peter Richards

PARAMARIBO, Suriname, Feb 21 2005 (IPS) - Almost a year after Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide was controversially removed from office on Feb. 29, 2004, Haiti continues to be a millstone around the necks of Caribbean leaders.

While Haiti’s new government remains barred from participating in the deliberations of the regional grouping Caricom, its absence did little to cool debate on the ongoing political crisis in the former French colony during the summit that ended here last weekend.

The leaders of Grenada and Suriname had signaled their intention from the start of the two-day summit that there should be a rethink of past positions on Haiti adopted by the Caribbean leaders, which in the main ranged from some sort of engagement to total exclusion.

Suriname’s President Ronald Venetiaan, the current Caricom chairman, said that it was important for his fellow heads of state to "study the history, suffering and the continued exploitation of the Haitian people since their independence".

"Haiti’s problem and challenges are deeply rooted in the history of the country, in the socioeconomic structures within the Haitian society and seemingly its polities of conflict and non-compromise," he said.

"While the political crisis is continuing the international community is seeking to support some kind of stability and security," Venetiaan added.

Grenada’s Prime Minister Dr. Keith Mitchell is known to support some form of engagement with Haiti, likening the current situation to a cricket match in which the Caribbean leaders were fielding outside the boundaries rather than being on the field of play helping to shape the future of the former French colony.

"We have a moral, regional and indeed a family obligation to engage Haiti more, rather than remain on the sidelines, as has been the case. I am compelled to record my disappointment at our inability to preside over the return of Haiti to the fold of democratic governments as is provided in the Caricom Charter on Civil Society," Mitchell said at the start of the summit.

"We must therefore ensure that the guiding principle for our Community, such as the sacred rights of all citizens to exercise their own democratic options, the protection of civil rights and the centrality of due process, are indeed respected."

The public statements may have forced some form of reconciliation among the leaders, even as others privately acknowledged that the "strong open position" by some Caribbean leaders had made it difficult for them to back down on their original stance regarding Haiti.

Guyana’s President Bharrat Jagdeo told reporters that his personal position would be for a "re-engagement only under some clear conditions".

At the end of the summit, the regional leaders issued yet another statement indicating that while they were encouraged by the growing support for a national dialogue in the country, the region "remains gravely concerned by the overall situation in Haiti".

"The Community is particularly disturbed over the deteriorating human rights situation and the continuing violations of the principles laid down in the Caricom Charter of Civil Society," the statement said.

Unlike previous statements on Haiti, the Caribbean leaders this time regarded the indefinite detention of former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune as a symbol of their opposition to the arbitrary detention and arrest of persons known to be in opposition to the U.S.-backed administration.

"These persons must either be charged and brought before the courts or released forthwith. It is difficult to conceive of fair elections while the leaders and activists of a major political party remain in arbitrary detention," the regional leaders noted.

Last November, Caribbean countries had signaled their support for the initiatives of South American countries headed by Brazil to help change the social, economic and political climate in Haiti.

The November position may have been guided by the indifferent positions of the regional leaders on the Haitian issue, but the latest statement, while re-affirming the region’s commitment to the welfare of the Haitian people, nonetheless indicated that the Caribbean countries were willing to provide technical assistance for the electoral process in Haiti.

St. Lucia, which has been among the Caribbean countries opposed to Caricom reengagement of the Gerard Latortue administration in Port au Prince, made it clear that the "new" involvement would be part of United Nations efforts to restore democratic rule.

"We are working with the United Nations agenda on Haiti, not with the agenda of the Latortue administration," the island’s Foreign Minister Petrus Compton said at the end of summit news conference.

To this end, the chief coordinator of the Caricom task force, Hugh Cholmondeley, will attend a meeting on Haiti called by the international community in French Guiana next month.

"The building of democracy in Haiti and improving the lot of the ordinary Haitians constitute a complex and long-term process to which the Caribbean Community has pledged its assistance," the leaders said.

This latest statement by the regional leaders would also please the special envoy of the U.N. Secretary-General to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, who met with regional foreign ministers ahead of the two-day summit, urging increased CARICOM participation in Haiti.

He said that the presence of the U.N. Mission in Port au Prince, which has 7,400 peacekeepers deployed around the country, had helped stem the collapse that "was being produced as a result of the internal divisions and as a result of the violence in Haiti last year".

"The society is stabilised, the political process is developing, a new dialogue is possible, conditions of security are much better than they were some four months ago, yet the agents of insecurity and instability are still there and today our first task is to begin the process of disarmament," Valdes told IPS.

"I would say the Haitian society is in a situation of stability, yet the threat of insecurity is still there," he added.

Valdez said the national dialogue in March should be attended by all stakeholders in Haiti, "without exclusion".

"Everybody will be allowed to participate in the dialogue," he said, noting that discussions have been ongoing with representatives of the Famni Lavalas, the political organisation that was founded by Aristide.

But he made it clear that there would be no time frame on the duration of the dialogue.

"I don’t think that the situation of Haiti is a situation that can be achieved in a matter of months. It is a very long-term process and it involves an enormous effort on the part of Haitians," he added.