Haiti

(Quelle: Reliefweb) Preval, who led the impoverished Caribbean nation from 1996 to 2001, did not claim victory but sounded like a winner after election officials said the one-time Aristide protégé was leading with 61 percent after about 283,000 votes had been counted. … Another former president, Leslie Manigat, trailed in second place with 13.4 percent, while industrialist Charles Baker, the main candidate of the wealthy elite which opposed Aristide, had 6.1 percent. International observers praised the high turnout in a ballot that could set a new test for U.S. foreign policy, but criticized election officials for late poll openings and irregularities during Tuesday's election.

(Quelle: New York Times) United Nations troops began hauling ballots on Wednesday from remote voting centers across the country, as a politically polarized population braced nervously for results from Tuesday's presidential election. Gérard le Chevalier, head of the United Nations electoral mission here, said that poll workers had counted ballots through the night, and that tamper-proof transmission of results had begun.

(Quelle: BBC) International monitors have praised the running of Haiti's general election, as vote-counting gets under way. The head of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said voting was satisfactory despite a chaotic start. At least three people died and dozens were injured in crushes at polling stations or altercations with police. It is the first vote since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted a year ago. Results are due on Friday.

(Quelle: Washington Post) U.N. and Haitian authorities pledged Thursday to prevent violence from disrupting next week's elections, as an aid agency warned that fighting inside gang-controlled slums threatens to scare people away from the polls.Lt. Gen. Jose Elito Carvalho de Siqueira, the commander of U.N. peacekeepers, said international troops and police will work with Haitian authorities to make sure people can vote in the first election since a rebellion forced the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide nearly two years ago.

(Quelle: Reuters AlertNet) Brazilian Gen. Jose Elito Carvalho Siqueira said the U.N. troops were not an occupation force and had no plan to violate the rights of innocent people living in volatile slums, as several human rights groups have charged. … An earlier statement by the U.N. envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, about a large-scale military operation being contemplated at the beginning of this month to flush armed gangs out of Cite Soleil, predicted 'collateral damage.' It prompted several human rights groups to accuse the United Nations of preparing a massacre in the slum.

(Quelle: New York Times) Uncertainty remains among the highest level organizers of the elections about whether a fair vote is possible in the corrupt and deeply polarized political atmosphere here. The postponement has led to finger-pointing all around. The interim government blames the international community for the delays, saying it failed to deliver voter cards and train enough poll workers. The United Nations blames the interim government, accusing its leaders of stalling in fear of losing power.

(Quelle: New York Times) Gunmen killed two Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers and seriously wounded a third Tuesday at a checkpoint in a slum in Haiti's capital that is a stronghold for supporters of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a spokesman said. The shootings in the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince occurred three weeks before long-postponed presidential and legislative elections to replace the interim government imposed after Aristide fled the country.

(Quelle: UN News) Secretary-General Kofi Annan has registered his opposition to a campaign of defamation against the United Nations peacekeeping mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) as well as his senior envoy to the country. In a letter to Prime Minister Gérard Latortue, Mr. Annan rejects the slander in recent weeks as “unacceptable.” … The Secretary-General also urges the Prime Minister to publicly condemn the campaign to discredit the envoy and the mission, warning that it could threaten the security of MINUSTAH as well as the holding of free and fair elections.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) Brazil jumped at the chance to lead the U.N. force 18 months ago to show it was a regional power worthy of a seat on a revamped U.N. Security Council. … Brazilian officers who hoped to mediate solutions with Haitians as fellow Latin Americans face pressure from other U.N. member forces to go into combat against armed gangs. Peacekeepers say they are seen as foreign occupiers or proxies of the United States, which helped engineer Aristide's flight.

(Quelle: Reuters Alertnet) The Haitian capital was paralyzed on Monday by a general strike called to protest a wave of kidnappings and what some Haitians see as U.N. inaction in the face of out-of-control crime. Organized by business leaders who have been urging the U.N force to be more muscular in cracking down on slum gangs as the country struggles to organize elections, the strike emptied shops and streets. Police sources say 1,900 people have been kidnapped in Port-au-Prince in the past 10 months, despite the presence of 9,000 U.N. troops and police.