Caricom leaders yesterday spurned the bid by Haiti's interim government for formal recognition, having, according to officials, judged as vague, insufficient and disingenuous the attempt by Prime Minister Gerard Latortue to clarify his withering attacks on the Community...
News Source: Jamaica Observer
Regional leaders, in a position finally arrived at about 2:00 am Saturday, said they would review their position at their regular summit in Grenada in July, but made clear that formal recognition of the administration in Port-au-Prince would be on the basis of a "return to constitutional and representative democracy".
But while not recognising Latortue's government and giving it Haiti's place in the councils of the regional economic and political bloc, Caribbean leaders said that they would, in collaboration with the international community, remain "engaged" with the authorities on behalf of the Haitian people.
At the same time, the leaders made clear that they would press ahead with their call early this month for a United Nations investigation into the circumstances under which ousted Haitian president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, left the country on February 29.
Aristide insists that he was subject of a "political kidnapping" as part of a coup d'etat instigated by the United States and supported by France and Canada.
But the Americans say that they, at his request, provided Aristide with security and passage out of Haiti after he had resigned on his own volition.
The decision by the Caribbean Community leaders came despite intense behind-the-scenes pressure from the Bush administration to embrace the interim regime and an 11th hour effort by Latortue to, according to one senior regional official, "deny and wiggle out of his clear statements of denunciation of Caricom in general and at least one member state in particular".
Angered by Caricom's posture on the Haitian issue and Jamaica's decision to give temporary asylum to Aristide, Latortue had accused the Community of having, over time, hurt Haiti, and told reporters in English, French and Creole interviews that he would freeze relations with the regional bloc, which Haiti joined in 1998.
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