caribbean roundup

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti (AP) – Police and former rebels held emergency talks recently after clashes erupted between the two groups, less than 48 hours after police returned to this sprawling city that rebels claimed during a rebellion to oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The choppy transition was illustrated late Monday night when a shot rang out in front of a charred police station manned by rebels, and another outside a hillside hotel that the former rebels have used as a meeting place since taking the city on Feb. 22.

Neither side admitted to firing the shots but the clashes underscore the challenges in the north where rebels have stepped in as law enforcers to fill a void. During the rebellion, many po-lice and government workers fled their posts fearing reprisal attacks.

"There are some problems between factions of the police and rebels right now but we’re trying to work out these misunderstandings,’’ said Renan Etienne, the city’s new police chief and director of police in the country’s northern de-partments.

More than 30 police officers have returned to the city – Haiti’s second largest with more than 500,000 people – but the former rebels still outnumber and outgun the police.

– Human Rights groups have criticized the former rebels for targeting former supporters of Aristide or his Lavalas Family party. On Tuesday, the ex-commandos were holding five prisoners and had just released nearly a dozen accused of crimes ranging from theft to illegal weapons. Two were being held on allegations they were armed Aristide loyalists.

As rights groups questioned interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue’s ac-tions at a weekend rally where he celebrated the gangsters who began Haiti’s uprising as "freedom fighters,’’ Laval-as officials appeared to be regrouping and warned there could be no peace without the participation of Haiti’s largest political movement.

"Everywhere Lavalas is a victim,’’ said Sen. Yvon Feuille, a Lavalas member. "Besides those physical massacres, we see there is a political massacre being prepared behind Lavalas’ back,’’ he said. "Without Lavalas, there is no solution.’’

Aristide left Feb. 29, claiming he was forced from power by the United States as rebels threatened to attack Port-au-Prince. Some 3,300 troops from the United States, France, Chile and Canada are in Haiti as peacekeepers. More than 150 French troops are patrolling the north, sometimes passing armed commandos and the newly arrived police.

Under a U.S.-sponsored plan, La-tortue last week formed a transitional government that he said is neutral but includes no Lavalas member and is loaded with Cabinet members critical of Aristide.

New York-based Human Rights Watch warned recently that fighters in the rebel-held north were illegally detaining former Aristide officials and journalists who supported him.

It urged French troops to quickly fill a "security vacuum’’ in northern Haiti.

"The multinational forces need to extend their reach,’’ said Joanne Mariner, Human Rights Watch director, said on her return from the north. "Right now there really is no rule of law in much of northern Haiti.’’

The New York-based National Coal-ition for Haitian Rights, meanwhile, accused Latortue of "fanning the flames of lawlessness’’ when he shared a platform with rebel leaders at a rally in his hometown of Gonaives on Saturday.

Coalition director Jocelyn McCalla criticized Latortue for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with "thugs’’ including rebel commander Jean Pierre Baptiste, also known as Jean Tatoune, who escaped from jail after being sentenced to two life sentences for involvement in the 1994 massacre of some 15 Aris-tide supporters.

"We strongly condemn the unholy alliance which the interim government has struck with the Gonaives rebels,’’ he said, noting one rebel leader "threat-ened to overthrow the interim government should they decide that things were not to their liking.’’

Amnesty International’s Americas director Eric Olson said, "It sends a very bad signal for the prime minister ... The future of Haiti depends on a strong justice system, and sweeping these things under the carpet weakens that future.’’

Cabinet Minister Robert Ulysse re-jected the criticism, saying Latortue was trying to "reckon with everything in the past’’ and discuss the "repressive nature’’ of Aristide’s government.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua (AP) – Antigua’s Prime Minister Lester Bird, has conceded defeat in a general election which took place on Tuesday.

It marks the end of a political dy-nasty which has dominated Antigua and Barbuda since the 1950s.

Excited islanders took to the streets as preliminary results showed a win for opposition leader Baldwin Spencer.

Mr. Spencer is a lifetime labor act-ivist who has promised to end the corruption endemic in the eastern Carib-bean nation.

Corruption claims

Mr. Spencer had said that despite a series of scandals, successive Antigua Labour Party governments had done nothing to prevent corruption.

The new prime minister repeated his pledge to stamp out corruption early on Wednesday, after Mr. Bird conceded that preliminary results showed the opposition United Progressive Party had "won overwhelmingly".

"Yesterday, the soldiers of the people’s crusade delivered the only judgment fit for the Antigua Labor Party’s crimes against the people of Antigua and Barbuda," he said.

"Crimes committed against the people must be punished. We will let the chips fall the way they may."

The outcome became clear after the opposition won three out of the first four seats in the lower house, known as the House of Representatives.

The Electoral Commission is ex-pected to issue the final results later on Wednesday.

Long running reign

Mr. Bird denied his defeat was linked to allegations of corruption against him.

Mr. Bird said that his party had laid down strict anti-corruption guidelines, following a 2002 inquiry into the na-tional medical insurance scheme that led to fraud charges against seven officials.

Mr. Bird said the people had just wanted a change.

"Elections were not contested on issues but on the basis of a time for change," he said.

The governing ALP had been seeking a seventh term in office.

Politics in the twin-island nation have been dominated by the Bird family for more than half a century - the family has held the post of prime minister since independence from Britain in 1981.

Mr. Bird has been prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda since 1994, when he took over from his father Vere.

MONTGO BAY, Jamaica (AP) – Police shot and killed a man suspected in a drug-related murder in Minnesota during a shootout in northern Jamaica, authorities said Monday.

Hopeton Eric Brown, who was one of the FBI’s "Ten Most Wanted Fu-gitives,’’ also was wanted in Jamaica in a 2001 double murder, Police Chief John Morris said.

He was killed in a running gunbattle in a suburban neighborhood of this north-coast tourist town, Morris said.

Brown was wanted in the beating and shooting death of a St. Paul, Minn., man in March 1997. Police said Brown and his associates also beat and shot the victim’s female friend, who survived.

In 1999, a federal grand jury in Min-neapolis indicted Brown and his associates on murder and attempted murder charges,

The shootout followed reports that three men had been shot in Barret Town, one of them fatally. Morris did not identify those men, but he said two men were in serious but stable condition.

Responding on the scene, police en-countered Brown and four other gunmen and pursued them on foot while exchanging fire. One officer was in-jured, but in stable condition .

The other four gunmen ran away, and it was unclear if any had been hit by police bullets, Morris said.

Brown was known by several aliases, including Anthony Brisco, Devon Foster, Eric Brown, Omar Brown, Richard Omar Kennedy, "Sandokam,’’ "Angell,’’ and "Shawn,’’ Morris said.

ST. JOHN’S, Antigua (AP) – Oust-ed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide will not take Nigeria up on its offer of temporary asylum, an associate said recently.

Randall Robinson, an African-Ame-rican activist, also accused the United States of exerting diplomatic pressure to shuttle Aristide far away from the Caribbean.

Robinson said he had spoken with Aristide, who is in Jamaica, by telephone after Nigeria Monday offer of asylum.

"He has not asked and does not want to go to Nigeria,’’ Robinson said by phone from his home on the nearby island of St. Kitts. "He has not requested to do so.’’

Robinson is a former president of TransAfrica, a Washington-based group that monitors U.S. policy toward Africa and the Caribbean.

Aristide left Haiti Feb. 29 as rebels threatened to attack the capital of Port-au-Prince. He later said U.S. troops kidnapped him, a charge denied by the United States.

Aristide arrived in Central African Republic on March 1 and stayed there with his wife until March 15, when he flew to Jamaica to be with his two daughters. Robinson accompanied Aristide on that flight.

Jamaica’s government has said it will allow Aristide and his wife, Mil-dred, to remain for 10 weeks while they seek permanent asylum.

"Were elections to be held in Haiti tomorrow, Aristide would be overwhelmingly re-elected,’’ Robinson said. "This fear has enraged the U.S. and has caused it to behave undemocratically and awfully.’’

Unofficially, Jamaican officials say Aristide wants to go to South Africa, which has indicated it would accept the former leader.

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