HAITI: The exclusion of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's allies from a new Haitian government throws attempts at peace and reconciliation to the wind, his supporters and analysts said yesterday.
As Mr Aristide began a third day in nearby Jamaica in a visit that has enraged his country's UN-backed authorities, the Prime Minister, Mr Gerard Latortue, was due to swear in a new Cabinet at the white National Palace in Port-au-Prince that looms over squalid slums.
The Cabinet includes no members of Mr Aristide's Lavalas Family party. This was despite assurances by Mr Latortue that he would create a government of national reconciliation to end bloodshed after a month-long rebellion against Mr Aristide, and warnings by Lavalas that peace would be impossible unless it, and the poor majority it represents, are given a voice.
"There is no climate of national reconciliation," said Mr Leslie Voltaire, a former Aristide minister. "We are under threat, we can't meet. There is a witch-hunt against Lavalas."
Mr Voltaire said in an interview that Mr Latortue had insisted on not including political parties and resisted Lavalas pressure to have a certain number of ministries assigned to it.
Given that, Mr Aristide's party had decided not to participate in the new government. The party would regroup to campaign in new elections expected within a year, he said.
Political analysts said the composition of the government, which includes several members of the main groups that led anti-government protests in the months before Mr Aristide's fall, but also "technocrat" ministers with experience in international organisations, could deepen the gulf between Mr Aristide's supporters and his foes.
"The impression is that there is a concerted attempt to marginalise Lavalas," Mr Robert Fatton, of the University of Virginia, said. "Whether they like it or not, he (Aristide) still has support. (But)
. . . if they get support in terms of financial assistance, it may still work." - (Reuters)