19168: Burnham: Globe and Mail:Pressure grows to send forces to help Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

forwarded by Thor Burnham:


Pressure grows to send forces to help Haiti
Reconnaissance unit from Canada checking security, Graham announces

By PAUL KNOX, JEFF SALLOT
Wednesday, February 25, 2004 - Page A17

PORT-AU-PRINCE AND OTTAWA -- Foreign governments, including Canada, came
under growing pressure yesterday to send troops to Haiti as President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide issued an urgent plea for foreign help in battling
armed insurgents and his political opponents rejected a power-sharing deal.

In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said a Canadian Forces
reconnaissance unit has been sent to Port-au-Prince to assess security for
Canadians and the potential for an intervention force. He told reporters
last night that Canada and the United States will ask the United Nations
Security Council to discuss Haiti this afternoon in New York.

The armed rebels invaded northwestern Port-de-Paix early yesterday and now
control at least half of the country. But Mr. Graham said he is not
convinced that sending police or military forces would produce a long-term
solution to Haiti's political problems.

"We'll continue to monitor the situation," Mr. Graham said, adding that he
was speaking daily about the situation with U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell.

A diplomat close to the crisis said intense discussions are under way in
several capitals about how to avert a spiral of bloodshed. More than 60
people have died since the rebellion broke out Feb. 5. With rebels
threatening to attack Port-au-Prince within days, the diplomat warned
against a delay in sending foreign forces to Haiti.

"There could be some sort of bloodbath which would require an intervention
in much worse circumstances," he said.

Hopes for a negotiated solution to the crisis faded badly yesterday as
political and civic leaders opposed to Mr. Aristide rejected the
power-sharing deal backed by Ottawa and other foreign governments.

Charles Baker, a businessman and prominent opposition member, said the
Democratic Platform umbrella group continued to insist on Mr. Aristide's
resignation.

Foreign governments should "go back to the drawing board," Mr. Baker said.

A foreign force that came to Haiti to bolster Mr. Aristide would face
trouble, he added.

"They would find themselves with a mass rebellion. They would not be
welcomed at all," Mr. Baker said.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said his government intends to
hold talks with Haitian opposition leaders on the crisis this week in Paris.

Speaking to reporters in Port-au-Prince, Mr. Aristide warned of a new "boat
people" crisis if Haitians set out in flimsy vessels hoping to flee the
rebellion by "criminal terrorists and killers" and start a new life in the
United States.

"How many of them will die before reaching Florida, I don't know," the
President said.

Hoping to protect its own territory, the Dominican Republic sent 1,500 extra
troops to its shared border with Haiti.

Mr. Aristide also described the armed attack on the city of Port-de-Paix, on
Haiti's northwest coast. "They burned public and private houses, killing
innocent people," he said.

There was no confirmation that the attackers were linked to the rebels led
by former army and police officers who have driven police from most of
northern Haiti.

The northwest was a prime departure point for thousands of Haitians who took
to the sea in 1994, the third year of a military junta that deposed Mr.
Aristide during his first term as Haiti's elected leader. That crisis led
U.S. president Bill Clinton to send 20,000 U.S. troops to Haiti to restore
Mr. Aristide to power.

U.S. Coast Guard vessels now patrol the waters off Haiti and as yet there
are few signs that the current rebellion is leading to mass flight. But Mr.
Aristide appealed to foreign leaders to send police advisers to bolster
Haiti's under-equipped 4,000-member national force, whose demoralized
members have often abandoned their posts rather than battle the rebels.

"We are eager to see that happening," he said.

Mr. Aristide, a former slum priest who was elected in 2000 to a new
five-year term, says he is the victim of an attempted coup d'état by former
military officers linked to the impoverished country's tiny wealthy elite.
His opponents say he tolerates rampant corruption and has armed supporters
to allow them to attack and intimidate dissidents.

The insurgents include former soldiers linked to paramilitary death squads
that operated under military control before Mr. Aristide disbanded the army.

New-York-based Human Rights Watch urged foreign governments to consider
sending a military force to help stem the violence in Haiti.

"Given the horrendous human-rights records of some of the leaders of the
armed rebellion, we are extremely concerned that the rebel forces will take
advantage of the opportunity to settle scores," the group's deputy Americas
director, Joanne Mariner, said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch also noted that pro-government gangs have been guilty of
violence.

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