18717: Globe and Mail:Aristide appeals for foreign assistance as insurgents overrun tow (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

Aristide appeals for foreign assistance as insurgents overrun town

By PAUL KNOX
Tuesday, February 17, 2004 - Page A13


PORT-AU-PRINCE -- As rebels overran a key town in central Haiti yesterday,
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide said the country's police force is
ill-equipped to deal with a growing insurgency, and issued a fresh appeal
for foreign help.

Speaking at his presidential palace, Mr. Aristide asked the Organization of
American States to boost its contingent of police advisers in Haiti and send
further aid to help him deal with the rebels.

The Haitian National Police would have trouble dealing with an assault on
Port-au-Prince, despite 10 years of training by Canadian, French and U.S.
police forces, he said.

"The police might not be able to stand up to this kind of attack," Mr.
Aristide said.

He spoke to reporters after insurgents seized the police station in Hinche,
130 kilometres northeast of Port-au-Prince, in a battle that lasted several
hours. Three officers, including provincial police chief Maxime Jonas, were
killed.

Hinche is about 30 kilometres from the border with the Dominican Republic,
and is well to the east of several towns captured over the past two weeks by
rebels. "It's quite significant," a foreign diplomat said.

The insurgents include members of a formerly pro-government street gang in
Gonaïves, Haiti's fourth-largest city, as well as former HNP chief Guy
Philippe and former paramilitary death-squad leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain.

Some reports say Mr. Chamblain brought several commandos with him from the
Dominican Republic. Rebel leaders boasted on the weekend that their
followers had undergone military training near Gonaïves.

Agence France-Presse reported that Mr. Chamblain led the assault on Hinche.

Another report quoted a rebel leader as saying Mr. Philippe was heading to
Cap-Haitien on the country's north coast.

The rebels have no apparent links to the non-violent movement that has
mounted frequent street demonstrations against Mr. Aristide for several
months.

Mr. Aristide was elected to a five-year term in 2000 but has spent most of
it besieged by protest. His opponents say he has failed to fulfill his
pledges to attack poverty in the poorest country in the Americas, tolerates
rampant corruption and funnels arms to his supporters to intimidate
dissenters.

In Port-au-Prince, Mr. Aristide condemned the rebels as terrorists and said
the Hinche raid merely demonstrated the need for aid from abroad.

"I hope the international community will move forward more quickly so as to
prevent others from being victims of these terrorist weapons," he said.

Several governments, including Canada, poured millions of dollars into Haiti
to help build the HNP from scratch under the auspices of the United Nations.
But foreign support is now limited to the OAS contingent of about 30 police
advisers. Foreign officials have said Mr. Aristide moved slowly to crack
down on police corruption.

Mr. Aristide refused to reveal details of the aid he was seeking, but said
he had a plan drawn up by experts that ran to "pages and pages."

He said police would act within the "framework of law" to deal with the
insurgency, and appealed to the rebels to stop fighting.

"If they continue to use violence we won't go anywhere," Mr. Aristide said.
"Now what we need is people willing to talk."

Meanwhile, relief officials said a shipment of surgical equipment and blood
had arrived in Gonaïves to treat people wounded in clashes on Feb. 5, when
rebels seized the town, and Feb. 7, when they repulsed a police
counterattack.

They said they plan to open talks with the rebels on creating secure
corridors for delivery of food and medical supplies in northern Haiti.

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