Today's Date:

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THE MINISTER – (...) First of all who can be relied on in Haiti? The question arises because it's a country on the verge of chaos. There are various forces – the Catholic and Protestant churches which must come together if things are to be organized; the regional forces: initiatives have been taken by the Organization of American States and especially CARICOM, the Caribbean Community; the international community, i.e. basically, the friends of Haiti, who include us. I have had the opportunity to talk about this in Latin America, to Brazil and Mexico who are ready to act, to Canada, the United States and South Africa: a lot of countries are ready to act in support of Haiti, but, of course, that presupposes the Haiti political class actually doing something and doing it fast. It presupposes President Aristide committing himself to ensuring law and order, that's his first responsibility. The opposition groups can't confine themselves to a simple strategy of rejection.

So what can France specifically do? First of all, we want to think about what could be done as a matter of urgency. Can a peacekeeping force be deployed? We are in contact with all our partners in the framework of the United Nations, which has sent a humanitarian mission to Haiti to take stock of what is in fact possible. Then today I called an urgent crisis cell meeting at the Quai d'Orsay to bring together all the French government departments and see what we might be able to provide in the way of an immediate contribution. (...) We have very important assets near Haiti, with our [overseas] departments of the French West Indies and French Guiana. There we have a pool of skills in the spheres of education, health, humanitarian action. We want to be able to make all this available at the appropriate moment and if circumstances allow. Once again, we must try to make dialogue prevail over violence. This requires President Aristide, who has let his country drift over the years, being able to find the strength to make progress towards dialogue. This requires, in this phase, all the Haitian leaders having a single thought in mind: Haiti and the Haitian people who have been suffering for too many years. (...)./.