Haiti Politician Calls for Strike to Oust Junta

Presidential candidate Sylvio Claude today called for a nationwide strike until the military-dominated junta resigns, and a Roman Catholic priest was quoted as endorsing a revolution to oust the government.

“We are calling for a strike for Friday to continue until the departure of the junta,” Claude told reporters.

Human rights leaders, meanwhile, denounced a junta order that they form a new Electoral Council to oversee national elections, which were scheduled last Sunday but canceled after soldiers and thugs killed 34 people and wounded 75.

“If the junta does not resign, we ask for the intervention of a multinational observer force to supervise elections and guarantee security. . . . I just want people not to be killed anymore,” said Claude, of the Christian Democratic Party.

O.A.S. or U.N. Group

He recommended that the Organization of American States or the United Nations organize the force.

“It is not a military force I’m asking for. I’m a nationalist and I could never do that,” he said.

Members of the independent Electoral Council, disbanded after Sunday’s aborted elections, remained in hiding. The elections for Haiti’s president and National Assembly would have been the nation’s first free elections in 30 years.

The Rev. Jean Bertrand Aristide, an outspoken Catholic priest, called for a “real revolution” to oust the junta, Radio Metropole said.

“To make an omelet, you have to break the egg,” he was quoted as telling reporters.