18729: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MARK STEVENSON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 17 (AP) -- Haiti's premier said his country was in
the throes of a coup and appealed Tuesday for international help -- even as
Washington and Paris stated reluctance to use force to stop the blood
uprising.
   Prime Minister Yvon Neptune made his plea a day after former soldiers
joined the rebellion, seizing the key central city of Hinche, burning the
police station, freeing prisoners -- and increasing the potential for a
full-scale civil war.
   Rebels also control most roads leading in and out of the Artibonite,
home to almost 1 million people, and have isolated the north by chasing
police from a dozen towns. At least 56 people have been killed.
   "We are witnessing the coup d'etat machine in motion," Neptune told
reporters. He said Haiti's 5,000-member police force is ill-equipped to
respond and that he expects the international community "to show that it
really wants peace and stability in Haiti."
   He refused to say if that meant a military intervention, and President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Monday said he had asked the Organization of
American States only for "technical assistance."
   Still, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday that "there is
frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or police forces to
put down the violence that we are seeing."
   Powell, speaking on CNN, said the international community wants to see
"a political solution" and only then would willing nations offer a police
presence to implement such an agreement.
   In Paris, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called an
emergency meeting Tuesday weigh the risks of sending peacekeepers and how
otherwise to help the impoverished island, a former colony that is home to
2,000 French citizens.
   "Can we deploy a peacekeeping force?" he asked on France-Inter radio,
noting it "is very difficult" when a nation is in the midst of violence.
   He said France had 4,000 troops in its Caribbean territories of
Martinique and Guadeloupe trained in humanitarian work. "We are in contact
with all of our partners in the framework of the United Nations, which has
sent a humanitarian mission to Haiti to see what is possible."
   The United States has staged three military interventions in Haiti, the
last in 1994 when it sent 20,000 troops to end a military dictatorship that
had ousted Aristide and halt an influx of Haitian boat people to Florida.
   Fearing a new exodus, spokesman Ron Redmond of the U.N. High
Commissioner for Refugees said the agency was meeting Tuesday in Washington
with U.S. and Caribbean officials to discuss how to cope with any flight of
Haitians. So far, there has been no significant increase in Haitians
fleeing for U.S. shores as they did in the 1990s.
   "We would certainly hope that these governments would receive fleeing
asylum seekers," with UNHCR ready to help, Redmond told reporters.
   Aid officials warned of a humanitarian crisis and a statement from
several nongovernment organizations operating in Haiti warned the revolt is
bringing the country "to the verge of a generalized civil war."
   Witnesses said about 50 rebels descended Monday on the station in Hinche
and killed three officers before the police fled the city of 50,000. Hinche
is about 70 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince.
   On Tuesday, it was impossible to reach Hinche because police and armed
Aristide supporters have erected barricades blocking the road at the town
of Mirebalais, just south of the city.
   Witnesses said the rebels were led by Louis-Jodel Chamblain, a former
soldier sentenced to death in absentia who led the feared paramilitary
group FRAPH -- the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti -- which
killed and maimed hundreds of Aristide supporters under military
dictatorship between 1991 and 1994.
   Aristide, a slum priest who preached revolution to Haiti's poor, swept
1990 elections to become the country's first freely elected leader. He was
ousted in a coup in 1991, restored by U.S. troops in 1994, and disbanded
the army in 1995.
   In its place is a police force estimated at less than 5,000 people
trained to deal with riots, not combat, that in outlying posts is
outnumbered and outgunned by the rebels.
   There are not believed to be more than 100 rebels in Gonaives, where the
rebellion to oust Aristide exploded Feb. 5. But they repelled a police
attack to retake the city last week in fighting that killed 30 people,
mostly officers, according to the Haitian Red Cross.
   At least 56 people have died as the revolt has spread from Gonaives,
about 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.
   Reprisal killings continue in rebel-held and police-held areas. On
Sunday night, Aristide loyalists reportedly killed two anti-government
supporters in the port town of St. Marc.
   Aristide refused Monday to discuss strategies for halting the revolt.
   "A group of terrorists are breaking democratic order," Aristide said.
"We have the responsibility to use the law and dialogue to take a peaceful
way" to quell the uprising that has blocked food, fuel and medical
shipments to northern Haiti.
   Discontent has grown in Haiti, a nation of 8 million people, since
Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000 and
international donors froze millions of dollars.
   Aristide is accused of using the police and armed militants to stifle
dissent and allowing corrupt officials to enrich themselves while Haitians
suffer deepening poverty.
   Opposition politicians refuse to participate in new elections unless
Aristide steps down, and the rebels say they will lay down their weapons
only when he is ousted.