Haiti

(Quelle: AlertNet) An investigative judge has formally charged Haiti's jailed former prime minister, Yvon Neptune, with masterminding the killings of political opponents last year, radio reports said on Tuesday. Neptune, who served under ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, has been held for more than a year on suspicion of involvement in the killings of up to 50 people near St. Marc, about 60 miles (96 km) north of Port-au-Prince, on Feb. 11, 2004.

(Quelle: BBC) Former Presidents Rene Preval and Leslie Manigat, as well as ex-PM Marc Bazin, are among the candidates. … Mr Aristide's Lavalas Family party - which has widespread support, particularly in the capital's poorer neighbourhoods - has threatened to boycott the elections. Earlier this week, it was barred from registering its chosen candidate, Gerard Jean-Juste.

(Quelle: BBC) The party of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide has been barred from registering a jailed Catholic priest as its presidential candidate. Gerard Jean-Juste was arrested two months ago on suspicion of involvement in the murder of journalist Jacques Roche. He denies the accusations.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) Haitian authorities on Monday changed for the third time this year the dates for the country's first presidential and legislative elections since the ouster of president Jean Bertrand Aristide. The first round of voting will take place November 20 and the second round on January 3, the interim government said. Municipal and local elections will take place December 11, according to the interim government that took over after Aristide fled the country amid an armed uprising in February 2004.

(Quelle: UN News) Venezuela, citing historical ties, has offered to assist Haiti in the areas of energy, education and economic development, the head of the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the Caribbean country, Juan Gabriel Valdés, said. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez made the offer in the margins of a meeting of foreign ministers from the Rio Group of Latin American states, focusing on Haiti, last Thursday and Friday in Bariloche, Argentina, he said.

(Quelle: New York Times) Sitting at the gateway of the nation's capital, Cité Soleil is a broiling slum of shacks, dust and ditches filled with human waste. ... Yet, with the first round of national elections now scheduled for Nov. 13, what happens in Cité Soleil is increasingly important to the world beyond its squalor. Not only does it have one of the biggest blocs of potential voters - many of whom back Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the ousted president - but it also can generate the kind of violence that could disrupt those elections. For United Nations peacekeeping forces, bringing some semblance of order to Cité Soleil and giving its residents a chance to vote in the elections are seen as important steps in establishing a new, credible government in Haiti.

(Quelle: UN News) Speaking to reporters in Brasilia, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) and chief of the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), Juan Gabriel Valdés, said: “Previous missions have failed because they pulled out their troops prematurely. MINUSTAH must avoid making the same mistake.” … The international community had to involve itself more deeply for the time necessary, especially in bolstering law enforcement and the judiciary, Mr. Valdés said.

(Quelle: Reliefweb) The party of ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide said on Monday it would boycott elections later this year if a parish priest it views as its likely presidential candidate is not released from jail. Gerald Gilles, a leader of a moderate faction of Haiti's leading opposition party, the Lavalas Family, said Father Gerard Jean-Juste was the most popular figure in the party. Jean-Juste was jailed a month ago by the interim Haitian government in connection with the murder of a journalist.

(Quelle: UN News) The United Nations mission in Haiti today condemned a rising rate of shooting deaths and presumed lynchings in the last two weeks in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and appealed for calm at a time when the priorities included establishing security and ensuring the return of a normal economic and social life. ... Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) Juan Gabriel Valdés told a crowd gathered in the historic southern seaport of Cayes yesterday to start a programme of decentralization from Port-au-Prince in the country emerging from civil conflict that the UN would support development projects, in general, and the decentralization programme, in particular.

(Quelle: Washington Post) On July 6, about 1,400 heavily armed U.N. peacekeepers from Brazil, Peru and Jordan, backed by Argentine and Chilean helicopters, marched into a Haitian slum for an early-morning raid on the home of Emmanuel 'Dread' Wilme, a gang leader who was agitating for the return to power of former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. ... The 12-hour U.N. operation in Cité Soleil signaled an escalation of force in Haiti, where the Brazilian-led U.N. mission had been criticized for months by the United States and others for its failure to confront Haiti's armed gangs. It also reflected a shift in tactics for U.N. peacekeeping troops, who by the mid-1990s were going out of their way to avoid combat. Now, the blue-helmeted troops are showing a renewed willingness to use considerable firepower against armed groups that they deem a threat to peace efforts.