Worldwide distribution via the APC networks.

WASHINGTON, Apr. 7 (IPS) – The U.S. State Department appears to be downplaying the importance of a list drawn up by the Pentagon with the names of Haitians targeted for assassination.

But the State Department warns that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide would be ill-advised to ignore the allegations, in light of reports that implicate a member of his Cabinet in last week's killing of a staunch opponent. State Department spokeswoman Christine Shelley Friday said she had no "concrete evidence" that the Port-au-Prince authorities were involved in any of the plots but said it was necessary for the government to take action against perpetrators of the crimes.

The spokeswoman denied reports that there was a difference of opinion between the Defense and State Departments over the importance of the Pentagon's list and what should be done about it. "That is just not the case," she told reporters. But she did argue that Haiti is "a rumor mill in terms of allegations of various types of activities," and that "it simply is not a productive exercise, for us, I think, to play off what any or all of those rumors might be."

This argument came with news that the Pentagon had sent a classified cable to the U.S. embassy in the Haitian capital, listing a number of Aristide's foes who may be up for assassination. But many other lists are reportedly around. U.N. officials in Haiti are also said to have produced their own list that is even longer than that of the Pentagon.

In the meantime, news reports here cite unnamed U.S. officials as saying they were irritated that Aristide had neither suspended nor fired the Interior Minister Mondesir Beaubrun, the man named by the U.S. military in one of two plots to kill Mireille Durocher Bertin, a lawyer and outspoken Aristide critic. U.S. military investigators allege that the interior minister was part of earlier plans to kill Durocher, who was assassinated March 28 on the streets of Port-au-Prince.

According to a report in the Los Angeles Times, a previous plot to kill Durocher in mid-March was aborted. The paper cites U.S. military officials as saying evidence against the interior minister includes statements by two brothers charged in the earlier plot, Eddie and Patrick Moise. U.S. military investigators arrested the two last month upon discovery of the first plot, and according to the L.A. Times, the car they were driving at the time contained a personal telephone book with Beaubrun's home numbers.

U.S. officials, who initially admitted they had no evidence to link the two men to the second plot, now say the brothers disappeared for several hours the day of Durocher's killing. They were transferred that same day from one Port-au-Prince jail to another.

In Washington, the State Department says it has received information from a variety of sources on possible threats to individual Haitians and has made the information available to its embassy in Port-au-Prince. It has asked the embassy to discuss the threats with members of the United Nations, which began its peacekeeping mission in Haiti March 31.

But both Aristide and President Clinton are now being attacked by Washington's rightwing politicians, who are using the allegations against Beaubrun as ammunition. Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress never supported the Clinton administration in its efforts to restore Aristide to office following the Sep. 1991 coup that sent him into exile.

Yesterday, Republican Senator Jesse Helms wrote a letter to Clinton urging the administration to suspend immediately all U.S. assistance to the government of Haiti pending the outcome of investigations into Durocher's death. Helms called the accusations against the interior minister "credible reports," and pointed out that Beaubrun was a close associate of Pierre Cherubin, Aristide's former Port-au-Prince police chief, who has himself faced similar allegations in the past.

Helms noted that the Clinton administration had committed itself to providing over $50 million to developing Haiti's police force. But "Inasmuch as public safety is the responsibility of Interior Minister Beaubrun, this 'police training' is dubious at best," Helms wrote. Origin: //

----

[c] 1994, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS)

All rights reserved

May not be reproduced, reprinted or posted to any system or service outside of the APC networks, without specific permission from IPS. This limitation includes distribution via Usenet News, bulletin board systems, mailing lists, print media and broadcast. For information about cross-posting, send a message to <ips-info@igc.apc.org>. For information about print or broadcast reproduction please contact the IPS coordinator at <ipsrom@gn.apc.org>.