Port-au-Prince, Thursday.
HAITI'S military-installed government said today it would go ahead
with holding legislative elections at the end of the year and asked
parliament to go into special session to pass an amnesty law.
The moves were seen as certain to outrage supporters of ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who oppose amnesty for the military and
its supporters.
A US general prepared to meet the country's powerful police chief,
Michel Francois, who was not a party to the agreement that allows 15,000
US troops into the country and calls for Aristide's return by October
15.
The government of provisional President Emile Jonassaint said it would
''very soon'' announce a timetable for the winter vote to elect more
than 2000 senators, deputies, mayors and local officials.
One-third of the Senate and the whole of the 83-member Chamber of
Deputies are up for re-election in a vote which now presumably will take
place after Aristide is returned to power.
''We are going to ask the Haitian people to get out and vote,'' the
communique, issued by the de facto regime's information ministry, said.
The ballots would be the first since an accord signed on Sunday by
former president Jimmy Carter and Jonassaint's de facto regime that
allows for Aristide to return by October 15 and for military leader
Lieutenant General Raoul Cedras to step down.
Thousands of American troops are flooding into the Caribbean nation to
ensure a peaceful handover of power. More than 7500 were in Haiti today
and another 1500 were expected to arrive before nightfall.
However, it is uncertain how the international community, which does
not recognise the Jonassaint regime and have told him to quit before
Aristide's return, will respond to the announcement.
US officials have said it will take about five months to properly
organise ballots under a democratic government. At the moment the
electoral committee which organises the elections is made up of
anti-Aristide officials.--Reuter.
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