19929: (Chamberlain) US troops seeking rebels (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(NYTimes, 6 March 04)


U.S. Special Forces in Haiti Seeking Out Rebel Leaders

By TIM WEINER



PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 5 — Newly arrived United States Special Forces
sought out rebel leaders on Friday, as marines at the presidential palace
were jeered and cursed by demonstrators loyal to the deposed president,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The American commandos are in the rebel strongholds of Cap Haitien and
Gonaïves, an American commander said. The commander, Gen. James T. Hill,
said the rebels had not laid down their weapons as they had promised,
though some had withdrawn from the capital.

Their most prominent leader, Guy Philippe, "is still in the city, and we
are still looking for him to lay down his arms," said General Hill, who
heads the Pentagon's Southern Command.

General Hill, flanked by commanders of French, Canadian and Chilean forces
at the international airport here, denounced the rebels' call for the
re-establishment of the Haitian Army. The Haitian military, long an
instrument of political terror, overthrew President Aristide in 1991.

"There is no need for a Haitian Army," General Hill said forcefully. "I was
here when President Aristide disbanded it, and that was the correct thing
to do at the time."

Mr. Aristide, who was returned to power by American forces in 1994,
disbanded the army in 1995. He left Haiti on Sunday under pressure from the
United States and the armed rebels. The rebel uprising began one month ago
in Gonaïves, spread to Cap Haitien and then swept into Port-au-Prince on
Monday.

The American Special Forces sent to Cap Haitien and Gonaïves are trained
and equipped to operate at the limits of the laws of war, and often serve
as point men for conventional military forces, gathering intelligence and
carving out forward positions.

In the capital, the American ambassador, James B. Foley, said a Haitian
"council of elders" was formed Friday afternoon. He said the council would
nominate members of a provisional "government of national unity" that would
eventually run the country.

At midday on Friday at the presidential palace, several hundred hooting
protesters loyal to the deposed president shouted angrily at about 30
marines who passed through the palace gates on foot, in trucks and in
armored vehicles, armed with assault weapons, machine guns and missiles.

General Hill described the street politics in Port-au-Prince as peaceful
democratic protests. Several thousand Aristide loyalists took part.

"They kidnapped Aristide," Égalité Smith, 31, said of the Americans. "We
want no war, but we want no occupation of Haiti."

General Hill acknowledged that "some people say it's an occupation." But he
said the mission of the multinational military force here was "the
re-establishment of the rule of law." To that end, he said, the military
would work to establish a police force from the remains of the national
police.

That force was created nine years ago under President Aristide, during the
last American military mission here. Many of the policemen sided with the
rebels who took the capital by storm on Monday.

The Bush administration is also calling on the Haitian Coast Guard to help
prevent Haitian refugees from leaving by boat. The Associated Press
reported that the administration had informed Congress that it would pay
the salaries of the Haitian Coast Guard for up to three months as well as
repair damage to its facilities.

Luis Moreno, the deputy chief of mission for the American Embassy here,
visited the coast guard headquarters this week with American troops to
assess the security situation for the anticipated return of asylum-seekers
intercepted at sea.

Security was uppermost in the mind of Dr. Philippe Desmangles, a surgeon at
the Polyclinique Centrale, a hospital sacked during the rebel uprising.

"They've secured an empty palace," he said of the American soldiers here.

"We needed security here," at the hospital, he added. "But that did not
interest them. They tell the rebels they cannot be involved in the politics
of our country. Some of us feel the same way about them."

The doctor, who was the only surgeon on duty at the only well-functioning
hospital in the capital, said he was "one of the best-paid doctors in the
country." He makes about $45 a week.

The flow of food, medicine and other international aid has resumed here,
but very slowly. Many international aid agencies' stores were looted during
the rebel advance on the capital.

Dr. Desmangles said the donations he had received in the last year were
"mostly worthless recycled materials."

"We have bullet wounds, dying people, every disease," he said. "If other
nations want to help, they will send doctors, not junk."