ARTICLE - PREVAL URGES CALM

PREVAL URGES CALM AS ELECTORAL VIOLENCE ROCKS HAITI
(Miami Herald) - By Jacqueline Charles and Trenton Daniel

PETIONVILLE - Acknowledging there was ``certainly'' fraud in Haiti's contested elections, President René Préval appealed for calm Wednesday, telling Haitians they will not resolve the country's electoral crisis through chaos.

``We are asking everyone, please stop burning tires on the roads, stop destroying government buildings, stop attacking people's businesses... We are asking everyone to obey the law,'' Préval said in a live radio address to the nation.

But his pleas for peace did little to calm protesters who first took to the streets Tuesday night after Haiti's Provisional Electoral Council announced results of the Nov. 28 election that showed government-backed candidate Jude Célestin will apparently go on to a January runoff vote against Mirlande Manigat, a former first lady, while singer Michel ``Sweet Micky'' Martelly finished third and won't.

As Préval spoke, police fired tear gas in Petionville and less than an hour later, angry Martelly supporters blocked the only road leading to Préval's private residence in the hills of Laboule, a Port-au-Prince suburb.

Several young men hauled two oversized dumpsters to the road's entrance and set them ablaze as others cheered.

In Delmas, masked protesters threw rubble at Brazilian U.N. troops in front of the earthquake-battered office of the Provisional Electoral Council. Others set fire to the headquarters of Unity, the coalition backing Célestin, Préval's hand-picked successor.

``It's your right to protest, but protest in peace,'' said Préval. ``If we can't put trust in an institution that is independent, and credible...the country will have problems.''

For those unhappy with the results, he said, there is a 72-hour period to file complaints.

It was the first time Préval had publicly talked about the preliminary results from the presidential and legislative elections, which were marred by accusations of ``massive fraud'' by opposition candidates and others.

But some protesters blasted Préval's plea for calm and blamed him for the unrest.

``He's the one who caused this problem,'' said Widner Jacques, 36, a mechanic. ``We voted for somebody and they should give us that person.''

On Wednesday, there were sporadic clashes between protesters and police who began firing tear gas to disburse bands mostly composed of teenage boys.

Most of these protesters spent the day running up and down the capital, waving pink posters for Martelly and demanding Préval's ouster and arrest. Thousands also marched in Cap-Haitien.

``We voted Micky, they gave us Jude,'' they sang. According to the electoral results, a mere .64 percent separated Célestin and Martelly in the voting.

Martelly, who had warned that his supporters would take to the streets if he was not in a runoff, was not available for comment, a spokesman said. A dozen armed men stood guard outside his home in the Petionville neighborhood of Peguyville.

``We are having meetings with our legal advisors on what position to take,'' said Daniel Supplice, political strategist for Martelly. ``We are contesting the results. We do not believe that Jude Célestin has that much popularity and number of votes that was announced yesterday.''

Supplice said Martelly has no control over the people in the streets. ``The people in the streets believe their vote was stolen,'' he said. ``We did not put the people in the streets so we cannot pull them out of the street... We believe it's a population that's fed up with a government that hasn't done anything in five years.''

Some unsuccessful candidates renewed their calls Wednesday to annul the elections.

``It's the president's fault. It's the international community's fault. It's the CEP's (Provisional Electoral Council's) fault,'' Charles-Henri Baker, an opposition presidential candidate who took sixth place told The Miami Herald. ``They didn't listen. There's a long fight if they don't annul those elections.''

As the unrest continued, some in the international community scrambled to find a way out.

Some sought to ``encourage'' Célestin to bow out of the elections. But others opposed such a solution, saying Haiti should not succumb to bullying and the best remedy for those who felt the vote was unfair was to go through the legal process.

``Every election has fraud,'' Préval said. ``The [complaint process] is there to uncover the fraud.''