Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, November 13, 1993 TAG: 9311130021
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI LENGTH: Short
There was no immediate attempt by the army to force either company to comply, and no word on whether the third major distributor, Texaco, also would keep its depot closed. The court order applies to it as well.
The depots are believed to contain several weeks worth of gasoline. With gas pumps running dry, the embargo has slowed traffic and the economy to a crawl.
When asked what the American reaction would be if force were used to open the pumps, U.S. Ambassador William Swing told reporters Friday: "We would regard any action that abates the sanctions with concern."
Some Haitians on Friday lined up to buy small amounts of black-market gas shipped in illegally from the embargo-busting Dominican Republic, Haiti's neighbor on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola.
The United States and other nations have positioned warships off Haiti to enforce the embargo, and Washington has frozen the U.S. assets of Haitian military leaders and supporters.
The embargo was imposed Oct. 19 to pressure the army to yield power to elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, toppled in a military coup in September 1991.
A spokesman for the Irving, Texas-based Exxon Corp., Doug Walt, said the firm's Essosa subsidiary in Haiti rejected a 24-hour deadline set by a Haitian civil court judge Thursday to resume fuel deliveries.
Essosa advised the Haitian government it would not comply "in view of the international sanctions currently in force," he said.
by CNB