Prime Minister P J Patterson said yesterday that he would personally have "great difficulty" sitting around the same table with Haitian rebel leaders who helped oust President Jean Bertrand Aristide.

But the Jamaican leader suggested his aversion to the men who helped drive Aristide from power would not necessarily translate to a suspension of Haiti from the Caribbean Community (Caricom) when regional leaders meet here today to decide on their response to what they see as a coup d'etat in a member state.

In fact, Patterson told reporters that when Caricom welcomed Haiti into the 15-member trade and economic grouping in 1998, part of the ideal was to end the country's "decades of isolation to help promote the growth of institutional democracy".

"To those objectives we still remain committed," the Jamaican prime minister said.

However, Haiti's future in the Community had come under question in recent weeks as that country's opposition insisted that Aristide resign and leave the country on a claim of corruption and human rights abuses by his government.
They rejected a Caricom compromise that would have seen Aristide serve out the remaining two years of his presidency, but share power with the opposition while the international community helps it prepare for elections.

The unrest fomented by the formal opposition was exacerbated by an insurgency led by several men with nasty reputations for human rights abuses as well as pressure on Aristide to step aside, from the United States, France and Canada, which had initially backed the Caricom plan.

For instance, Louis Jodel Chamblain and Jean Tatoune belonged to the paramilitary organisation FRAPH that massacred hundreds of Aristide's supporters in the early 1990s when he was previously deposed as president. They were sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment.

Another central figure in the Haitian uprising, Guy Phillippe, is a former soldier and regional police chief who was also sentenced to jail for plotting a coup in 2002.

Another of the rebel leaders is Jean Pierre Baptiste who was jailed for a 1994 massacre of Aristide supporters but escaped from jail two years ago.

"We would have very great difficulty, I certainly would have, in sitting around any table to be involved in discussions or negotiations with leaders of rebel forces," said Patterson, the current chairman of Caricom. "I, therefore, take the position that we will have to see what will unfold in the constitution of the (new) Government (in Haiti)."

The Haitian chief justice, Boniface Alexandre, has been sworn in as interim president, but Caricom has raised questions about the constitutionality of his position, given the fact that there is no legislature to ratify his position.

Patterson said that Caricom would also have to take into account the unanimous passage of a resolution, by the United Nations Security Council authorising the presence of an international peace keeping force in Haiti.

"We hope it will have the desired objective of ensuring the rule of law, the restoration of peace and order in that country," Patterson said. "We also have to look to the welfare and interest of the Haitian people themselves who remain our paramount concern."

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