Prime Minister P J Patterson warned yesterday that the Caribbean Community (Caricom) would not sanction any resolution of Haiti's political crisis that was predicated on the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Jamaican leader, who is chairman of the 15-member Caricom, argued that such a course would be "to set a dangerous precedent for constitutional governance and democratic process" and was "contrary to our (Caricom) already articulated position".

A troika of Western nations - the United States, Canada and France - have been increasingly putting pressure on Aristide to resign, as being demanded by the Haitian Opposition, as part of a plan to end an armed rebellion in the country, being led by a former coup plotter and the head of a right-wing death squad that killed hundreds of Aristide supporters in the 1990s.

The increasingly strident calls by the Western troika for Aristide to step down, two years ahead of the completion of his term, is a bolte face from their previous support for a Caricom initiative that would have Aristide stay in power, but with reduced authority.

Under the plan, which Aristide accepted, he, on the advice of an independent "wise men" group, would name a new prime minister and a new Government, while the international community would help Haiti fix its electoral system and reorganise its police force. A UN-sanctioned peace-keeping force would also be sent to Haiti.

The formal Haitian Opposition has rejected the initiative. The armed rebellion, in which scores of people have died and several major cities and towns taken over by the insurgents, erupted within days of Aristide's acceptance of the plan at a meeting in Kingston in late January with Caricom leaders.

Patterson, who flew home early Friday from a G-15 meeting in Venezuela to monitor the situation in Haiti, met yesterday with key Cabinet colleagues, including Foreign Minister K D Knight, who on Thursday made Caricom's ultimately unsuccessful effort to have the UN Security Council sanction an immediate peace-keeping mission to Haiti.

Apart from his meetings with ministers, Patterson has been in touch, via telephone, with other Caricom leaders on the implication of the shift in the position by the US, France and Canada - the US and France are permanent members of the Security Council - regarding Aristide's continued presence in Haiti.
It is expected that the community will issue a new statement on Haiti by Tuesday or Wednesday, but Patterson was adamant that the grouping, which Haiti joined in 1998 when Rene Preval was president, "will not favour any plan" which has as "a pre-condition the resignation of President Aristide".

Patterson stressed that the Caribbean Community had made great efforts to strike a healthy compromise between President Aristide and the demands of the recognised Opposition parties and civil society, but warned that the community could not now be party to any arrangement which would, in effect, be rewarding "intransigence" and "armed rebellion" to remove a legitimate head of state.

Caricom, according to Patterson, still held out hope that "better judgement" would prevail against demands for Aristide's resignation as a precondition for an international military presence in Haiti.

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