18922: (Chamberlain) Foreign aid workers, missionaries flee Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Amy Bracken

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Lines of Americans and
Canadians, many of them missionaries and aid workers, clogged the airport
in Haiti's capital on Friday, fleeing an armed revolt and violent
retribution by loyalists of beleaguered President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     The exodus followed a warning by the United States, which urged its
citizens on Thursday to leave the country.
     The conflict, which erupted two weeks ago and killed about 50 people,
has not yet reached Port-au-Prince, the smoggy, chaotic capital city of two
million where the palatial mansions of a small elite look down from lush
hilltops on sprawling slums.
     But foreigners in Haiti, many of whom are aid workers working to ease
the country's chronic poverty, said they were heeding the advice to leave.
     "We never saw any rebels and we never felt unsafe, but we knew there
was something happening," said Nancy McWilliams, a Christian relief agency
volunteer, as she arrived at the airport for a flight home. "Our
organization has told us it's safer for us to go and not be here anymore."
     Her colleague, Rene Gutenburg, said they had spent five months in
Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second city, but returned to Port-au-Prince a week ago
after an armed revolt in the city of Gonaives spread to several other towns
and villages.
     Unable to go back to Cap-Haitien, where Aristide's supporters have
thrown up flaming barricades, burned down opponents' homes and killed rebel
sympathizers, they decided to leave the country.
     "We ... decided it's best to go home right now because it looks like
things aren't going to be resolved for a while," Gutenburg told Reuters
Television.
     The aid workers, who build churches and clinics, care for orphans and
hand out food, are leaving behind the poorest country in the Americas. One
third of Haiti's population of eight million suffers from malnutrition and
the average income is a dollar a day.
     Haiti may now face an even deeper humanitarian crisis with a score of
towns in rebel hands, or abandoned by police.
     Some airport workers said flights were always packed at this time as
foreigners left to escape the turmoil of Haiti's carnival or travel. But
others said many passengers had brought forward their flights and Haitians
who could afford plane tickets and had foreign visas were also leaving.
     In Port-au-Prince occasional gunshots can be heard at night and there
are rumors that the rebels are planning to use the local carnival to
disguise an attack.
     Some long-time foreign residents of Haiti, which has had more than 30
coups since independence, said the panic was exaggerated.
     "Let me tell you something. Haiti is not going to die," an American
woman told Reuters Television as she flew out, saying she wanted to avoid
the carnival.

  (Additional reporting by Marco Trujillo)