The Democratic Convergence has hestated to call openly for Aristide’s resignation. However, one of its principal leaders, Evans Paul, of the KID did not mince his words.
The former mayor of Port-au-Prince called for a general mobilization to obtain Lavalas’s departure after eleven years in power. In a radio broadcast on August 7 Paul denounced the Lavalas regime for multiplying the crises in the country. He cited the electoral, cooperative and university crises. Aristide was acting against the interests of the population. He called on the population to force the Lavalas leader to give up power.
This is the first unequivocal declaration of a Convergence leader since the violent incidents in Gonaïves beginning on August 2. On August 6, Professor Victor Benoit, another principal leader of the opposition, called on the Organization of American States to reevaluate its position vis-à-vis Lavalas. He said that renewal of the negotiations depended on implementation of OAS resolution 806 which called for prosecution of the authors of the December 17 violence and clarification by Lavalas of the situation in Gonaïves in light of the popular organizations’ disclosure of the participation of government officials in the destruction of the opposition’s offices last December.
?Radio Métropole