Haiti opposition supports threat of U.S. sanctions

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) -- Haiti's opposition applauded a U.S. threat to impose economic sanctions against the impoverished Caribbean nation on Wednesday, but said the measures should be limited to actions affecting government.

"If they impose sanctions, we have no problems with that, but they have to target the sanctions," said Ariel Henry, a member of the opposition National Progressive Revolutionary Party (PANPRA). "The Haitian people are poor. They're already fighting with poverty. We don't think the sanctions should hurt the majority of the people."

Haiti, a nation of 7.5 million people, is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with annual per capita income of less than $400.

The Clinton administration said on Tuesday it would impose sanctions if Haiti did not reexamine tainted results from the May 21 legislative election, Haiti's first national vote in more than three years.

The United States also said it would "look closely at" proposed loans and grants to Haiti by the World Bank and InterAmerican Development Bank.

The U.S. warning came after a meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS), which conducted a fact-finding mission to Haiti last month to address concerns raised by the May and June elections.

OAS election observers said that 10 senatorial seats should have gone to a second-round runoff because the candidates did not win an absolute majority as required by Haiti's constitution.

The poll yielded an overwhelming victory for the ruling Lavalas Family party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who is widely expected to run for and win the presidency on Nov. 26.

The United States said it would withhold financial aid for Haiti's November presidential and senatorial elections, and would channel U.S. government aid to Haiti through private and nongovernmental organisations. The United States was particularly disturbed that Haiti said it would use the same electoral council that miscalculated election results in May.

President Rene Preval, who left Haiti late Tuesday to attend a summit of world leaders at the United Nations, said he was unaware of the U.S. threat of sanctions.

He said the November presidential and senatorial election and an anticipated December 17 runoff would cost $15 million.

Last week, 19 senators and 82 deputies took their seats in Haiti's bicameral parliament, despite widespread criticism of the electoral process.

Parliamentary elections held in 1997 were declared fraudulent, paralysing Haiti's government for much of the last three years. Preval dissolved parliament in early 1999 and has ruled by decree.

A U.S.-led invasion, hailed by the Clinton administration as a foreign policy success, restored Aristide to power in 1994 after a bloody coup ousted him three years earlier. But Haiti has been mired in political chaos for most of the past six years.

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