“Haiti: torn between chaos and hope”, that’s the front-page headline in Le Monde (29/2-1/3), over an article in which the French daily together with other international dailies analyses the future of the island and the fate of the fast-disintegrating Aristide government . Paris and Washington, recalls Le Monde, “are ready to send a peacekeeping force to the country”, which is in the grip of violent armed clashes, especially in the capital, Port-au-Prince. The French daily also contains a lengthy dossier on the “pearl of the Antilles”, former French colony, documenting the results of the “Debray Report” and of “two centuries of uprisings”: “from genocide to slavery, from massacres to invasions, from rebellions to dictatorships” these are the salient passages of Haiti’s “difficult relations with France”. “After the departure of Aristide, the reconstruction of Haiti”: that, according to La Croix (1st March), is the new password, if “civil peace is to be re-established” through the involvement of the whole international community. “Reconstructing and pacifying”, is the title of the editorial by Jean-Luc Macia, who points out that “to prevent history from repeating itself, it is essential, of course, that the UNO and the big powers play their role, but it’s also essential that the Haitian people primarily rely on themselves, knowing that if their country is to be reconstructed, democracy has still be built from scratch”. “It was a triumph. It was a victory. It was an historic moment”: that’s how Barbara Schiavulli, writing in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire, describes the entry of the militia leader Guy Philippe into the Haitian capital, amid the acclamations of the crowd. “The Haitians welcome the rebels to the capital”, headlines the Herald Tribune (2/3), which in an article signed by Tim Weiner and Lydia Polgreen reports that “ the UN Security Council, meeting in emergency session on Saturday night, approved a resolution favourable to the sending of a multinational force to Haiti (…). US Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Monday that this force would help to install a ‘responsible, efficient and incorrupt’ government”. The terrorist bomb blasts in Iraq are also discussed by the German commentators. “ The victims of the bombs of Baghdad and Kerbala could go down to history as the first victims of an Iraqi civil war“, writes Peter Münch in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (3/3). “ The terror attacks on the three major Shiite holy places“, writes Wolfgang Günther Lerch in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, “ … are a declaration of war on the Shiites but also on all Iraqis“. “ What’s needed now in Iraq is to safeguard the positive beginnings of a new order, without being deflected by this bloodshed. A civil war between Sunnis and Shiites would be a disaster with devastating effects not only in Iraq, but in the region as a whole“. “ Terror follows like a threatening shadow every political success in Iraq“, observes Rolf Paasch in the Frankfurter Rundschau. “ And this sequence risks becoming a model. For the more the representatives of the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the ruling council succeed in overcoming their differences, the more desperately do those who derive advantage from instability react whether they be diehards of the Baath regime, who don’t want to accept loss of power, or members of Al Qaida, who see in a civil war the last chance of a Holy War. […] As for Afghanistan, security is the decisive factor for democratisation in Iraq“. Writing about the German Catholic Church, whose bishops are currently meeting for their spring plenary assembly in Bensberg, Gernot Facius comments in Die Welt (3/3): “ In the country of reform, the Catholic Church … presents itself as an entity more solid than fragmented Protestantism. But will this be enough to resist the storms of the future?“. “ The Church in transformation… cannot exist on the basis of purely economic criteria; this type of Church cannot renounce the talents and charisms of the laity, men and women. The most recent tendencies however are going in quite a different direction“.———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1277 N.ro relativo : 17 Data pubblicazione : 05/03/04
