a985: BBC: Haitian politician calls for international force to disarm gangs (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Haitian politician calls for international force to disarm gangs
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Feb 28, 2002


[Announcer] The Democratic Convergence denounces the meeting between
President [Jean-Bertrand] Aristide and the rival armed gangs of Cite Soleil.
One of the Convergence leaders thinks that the head of state is legitimizing
the action of People's Organization members. Reynold Georges upholds the
necessity for the deployment of an international force to Haiti. Georges
speaks as follows:
[Georges - recording, in Creole] We are wondering whether or not Aristide is
aware that those men have killed a lot of people in Cite Soleil. Those men
have caused a lot of people to flee the area. They looted their homes, they
bit them and raped the women. And now he got them to come and sit with them.
As for us, we say "birds of a feather flock together." By so doing, Aristide
has legitimized all the acts committed by those people. And now we are
asking him what he has to say concerning all the people whom those bandits
have killed in Cite Soleil. Don't those people deserve some consideration?
Don't they deserve justice to be served? Aristide is always talking about
justice. We want to let him know that he has just publicly made himself an
accomplice of all the terrorist acts that those men have committed in Cite
Soleil. We also want to tell him that instead of disarming the gangs and
have them arrested, we noticed that he embraced them, shook hands with them
and congratulated them for the work that they have done. Therefore, he just
told them to continue to make more violence. We understand very well why
Aristide does not want to disarm those men. He leaves them there as a threat
to civil society, the Haitian people and the Democratic Convergence. By this
he means to say here are my scoundrels and I can get them to get rid of you
as I did on 17 December. So, I ask the international community to take note
of all that, and to send an international police force here as soon as
possible. For, the police have been turned into vassals by the scoundrels on
the one hand and by Lavalas on the other. Therefore, our only recourse is an
international police force that should come to disarm those men and to bring
peace in the country. [End of recording]
Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 28 Feb 02
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.