Haiti's new leader is in an "unholy alliance" with rebels including convicted assassins, one human-rights group said, while another warned that peacekeepers weren't doing enough to control rebels.
Several human-rights groups questioned interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's actions at a weekend rally where he celebrated the gangsters who began Haiti's uprising as "freedom fighters."
PHOTO: AP
Meanwhile, ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Family party, in disarray since many officials fled or are in hiding, appeared to be regrouping and warned on Monday that there could be no peace without the participation of Haiti's largest political movement.
A statement from Senator Yvon Feuille charged Lavalas members were being hounded across the country and even being killed.
"Everywhere Lavalas is a victim. Besides those physical massacres, we see there is a political massacre being prepared behind Lavalas' back," he said. "Without Lavalas, there is no solution. Without Lavalas, there won't be the peace we need so much."
He denounced what he said was a "white American and French colonists' plan" to marginalize the movement that helped bring Haiti's first democratic elections in 1990, which Aristide won in a landslide.
Aristide left on Feb. 29, claiming he was forced from power by the US as rebels threatened to attack Port-au-Prince. Some 3,300 troops from the US, France, Chile and Canada are stationed in Haiti as peacekeepers.
Under a US-sponsored plan, Latortue last week formed a transitional government that he said was neutral but includes no Lavalas member and is loaded with Cabinet members critical of Aristide.
Aristide is staying temporarily in Jamaica, but Nigeria announced Monday it had agreed to a request by Caribbean leaders to grant him temporary asylum. A Nigerian government statement did not say whether Aristide had requested -- or even agreed to -- asylum in the country.
Latortue, the US and others have criticized Jamaica for accepting Aristide, saying his presence near Haiti would raise tensions.
New York-based Human Rights Watch warned on Monday 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."
Her group said there were now fewer than 50 police for the northern region, which used to have a few hundred, and that rebels in Cap-Haitien had 16 prisoners in custody on Saturday.
The New York-based National Coalition 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.
The coalition's 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 Aristide supporters.
"Tatoune should have been in jail instead," McCalla said.
"We strongly condemn the unholy alliance which the interim government has struck with the Gonaives rebels," he said, noting one rebel leader "threatened 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," he said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.