RSS Feed
|
|||||
|
caribbean roundup PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) – The U.S. State Department sent letters to some Caribbean countries "essentially demanding’’ that they recognize Haiti’s interim government before re-gional leaders met for a summit in March, according to St. Vincent’s prime minister. Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, speaking at a dinner for insurance ex-ecutives in Trinidad recently, criticized the State Department for sending the letter and said there is currently an "absence of political democracy and a limitation on people’s freedoms’’ in Haiti. During its summit in March, the 15-nation Caribbean Community withheld support for the new Haitian government and said it would consider the issue at its next meeting in July. The community, also known as Caricom, has also called for a U.N. investigation of the circumstances surrounding former President Jean-Ber-trand Aristide’s departure from Haiti. Aristide says he was forced to resign by the United States, which denies the claim. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. State Department. MONTEGO BAY, Jamaica (AP) – One of Jamaica’s most high-profile policemen will appear in court on Wednesday along with six colleagues on murder charges. The case of flamboyant Senior Su-perintendent Reneto Adams, who once headed a feared police unit, promises to be the most-closely watched in Jamaica’s history. Representatives of Jamaica’s human rights groups said they will be closely monitoring the court proceedings in-volving the former head of the controversial police special squad which was disbanded last year. The lobby groups have been appealing for Justice especially against the background of previous cases in which policemen have been freed after being implicated in similar cases. Adams and the other policemen are to be arrested and charged on Wednes-day on four counts of murder but the controversial crime fighter could also be in a fight to avoid serious disciplinary action for damning statements against the police high command. Angered by media reports that a senior had written a letter warning against planning any demonstration during tomorrow’s court sitting, Adams took to the airwaves with a blistering attack on his colleagues. Speaking in a radio interview the former head of the disbanded Crime Management Unit charged that there was a conspiracy to get him. Adams criticized the High Command for what he described as their miserable failure in its fight against crime. "I have been working with them for 37 years and I don’t think the interest is for the Jamaican people," he said. "Look at the number of crimes taking place in this country, people are being slaughtered every day, drug men are moving up and down the place, extortion is taking place, young women and children are being raped and they can’t deal with that." The Police Commissioner Francis Forbes refused to respond directly to the charges from the Adams. However he stated that the comments from Adams will be examined and a file submitted to the Police Services Commission. According to Commissioner Forbes at the very least the comments from Adams were a serious breach of discipline. The Police Commissioner also charged that the behavior of the former head of the elite squad in recent time is the worst ever by any officer of the force since it was established. "The force came about in 1867 and I don’t think any other officer in the history of the force has brought the force to the low that it is now at by their utterances." Adams and the six policemen are to be charged in connection with the kill-ing of four persons in May last year. The four were reportedly killed in a shootout with the police, however residents remain adamant that the two men and two women were killed in cold blood. KINGSTOWN, St. Vincent (AP) – Enlargement of the European Union (EU) can mean a wider market for Caribbean products when ten new countries join on May 1 bringing the bloc’s membership to 25. However, St Vincent and the Grena-dines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves told (AP) he is somewhat apprehensive about the effects enlargement will have on Caribbean. His major concern was for the ba-nana industry, one of his country’s main sources of income. "In relation to the enlargement of the quota of bananas, it’s going to be about 450,000 tons - it would have been better if it was 350,000 400,000 but we can live with 450,000 tons - but there was a fear that it would reach 750,000." "Obviously, the bigger the quota, the greater the prospect for a depression in the price of bananas which would affect us adversely," Mr Gonsalves said. Mr Gonsalves said he was concerned about the level of funding that would come to the Caribbean after enlargement. "We have concerns as to whether some of the resources that go elsewhere would not be taken up with some of the new member states, but it’s too early to say, and we’re in discussions (with the EU) for the Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) and we’ll see how those come out." The EU has said its proposed EPA is more than about phasing out existing trade barriers. EU officials told (AP) Caribbean Service the new pact would complement efforts towards the Caribbean Single Market and Economy. Some regional commentators have said that the region needs to urgently find a strategy to deal with an enlarged EU, since many of the new members have no history of relations with the Caribbean and the Caribbean may fall of the EU agenda. However, Prime Minister Gonsal-ves said that it was too soon to make any judgements about how Caribbean-EU relations would progress after en-largement. "I am not so sure that we can come to that conclusion just yet, as I said there are apprehensions but there are a lot of good people in Europe - people and governments," Mr Gonsalves said. "We have had a long relationship with Europe and we all have to work together to sort out our problems." PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Chilean troops are preparing to take up posts in central Haiti, extending the peacekeeping presence where as many as 400 rebels still hold sway, a military spokesman said. Haiti’s interim leaders, meanwhile, met with former members of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s gov-ernment to form a council that will organize 2005 elections. Some 3,600 peacekeepers from the United States, France, Canada and Chile are trying to help Haiti’s meager police force, after hundreds of officers fled amid a three-week popular rebellion that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29. To extend the peacekeepers’ reach into areas of rebel control, Chilean troops will deploy next week to Hinche, a cen-tral town of 100,000 that straddles a strategic crossroads, said Chilean military spokesman Lt. Col. Renato Ron-danelli. The rebels, led by former Haitian Army Master Sgt. Joseph Jean-Bap-tiste, who seized the town in the second week of the rebellion, have accepted the plan. "He is ready to allow the Chilean forces to deploy and to do patrols,’’ Rondanelli said. The vacuum of leadership caused by the rebellion has forced peacekeepers to negotiate with rebels, many of whom like Jean-Baptiste come from the former Haitian army disbanded by Aristide when he was first ousted in a 1991 coup. In many towns, the rebels outnumber the police. In Hinche, there are between 200 to 400 former soldiers and only 15 officers from the demoralized police force, Rondanelli said. Meanwhile, Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was holding private talks with former Cabinet Minister Leslie Voltaire and other officials from Aristide’s Lavalas Family party to get them to name a representative to a provisional electoral council. After nine hours of negotiations, Voltaire said the two sides were drafting a memorandum of understanding that would allow Lavalas to name a representative, which the party so far has refused to do unless several de-mands are met. Voltaire did not say what was in the memorandum but said one of the Lavalas demands was to end the al-leged repression of party members by the new U.S.-backed government. Do-zens of former government and party members have been prohibited from leaving the country.
|
for larger version       |
||||
