18747: (Chamberlain) Powell sees no foreign forces for Haiti for now (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Saul Hudson

     WASHINGTON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday all but
ruled out foreign forces going to Haiti to quell an expanding armed revolt
that has forced the Caribbean nation to appeal for international help.
     Criticized for doing too little to staunch the chaos in the poorest
nation in the Americas, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell emphasized
negotiation and said security forces should be sent only after violence
abates.
     "There is frankly no enthusiasm right now for sending in military or
police forces to put down the violence that we are seeing," Powell told
reporters.
     "What we want to do right now is find a political solution and then
there are willing nations that would come forward with a police presence to
implement the political agreement that the sides come to."
     Canada, a key U.S. ally in the crisis, said it would be "madness" to
send reinforcements now.
     Faced with a surge in exile fighters returning to oust President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian government appealed for foreign
technical help for its small, undertrained, underfunded police force.
     U.S. officials have said that before police are sent in the Haitian
force could receive communications equipment and training through a mission
of the hemisphere's top diplomatic body, the Organization of American
States, already in Haiti.
     The United States, which invaded Haiti to restore Aristide to power a
decade ago after a coup and floods of refugees reached Florida, is leery of
foreign forces entering the country yet. Officials fear they will be
targeted by rebels or be perceived as favoring one side or the other.
     Up to 50 people have been killed in the rebellion against Aristide,
which capped months of anti-government demonstrations and years of
political tensions dating from contested parliamentary elections in 2000.
     The latest town overrun in the revolt was Hinche, where police ran out
of ammunition and fled. With no military and police numbering about 5,000
in a country of 8 million, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune said the government
could not protect such towns from attack.
     The United States has complained Haiti's police are neither
professional nor neutral in the conflict. Canada demanded Aristide fire the
police chief before foreigners were sent to support the force.
     "If, for example, we sent police there under the current conditions,
it would be madness," Foreign Minister Bill Graham told reporters in
Ottawa.
     French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, who spoke to Powell
early on Tuesday, said Paris was ready to offer humanitarian aid. But he
was noncommittal about whether it was prepared to send a peacekeeping force
to its former colony.
     But critics said the policy of waiting would only allow more chaos
and, although there was little sign of it yet, could spark an exodus of
refugees as occurred in the early 1990s.
     "The United States is following a policy of remarkable quietism," said
Larry Birns, the director of the liberal Washington-based think-tank, the
Council on Hemispheric Affairs. "You send a police force when it can do
most good and that time is now."
     Weeks ago, the CARICOM bloc of Caribbean nations hammered out an
accord with Aristide that included a pledge by him to disarm gangs aligned
with political parties.
     But the president, who is mid-way through a second term, has done
little to follow through on the agreement.
     Asked if Aristide should leave office early, White House spokesman
Scott McClellan said, "That's a matter for the people of Haiti to decide."

   (Additional reporting by Adam Entous in Washington, Amy Bracken in
Port-au-Prince and David Ljunggren in Ottawa)