20098: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Making Peace (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MARK STEVENSON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 9 (AP) -- For U.S. Marines now making the third
attempt in a century to bring order to Haiti, challenges abound, ranging
from whether to disarm the general population and how to help build a new
government without offending local leaders.
   The larger policy hopes -- that this time around, interventions like
those carried out in 1915 and 1994 will bring stable institutions and ease
poverty -- take a back seat to the more immediate business of establishing
law and order in a country that has not known it for years.
   On Sunday, peacekeepers got a taste of how difficult this mission could
be when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a peaceful demonstration,
leaving seven dead in an attack that prompted the first armed action by
Marines who arrived a week ago.
   Immediately, both opponents and supporters of ousted President Jean
Bertrand Aristide began calling on peacekeepers to disarm their enemies,
while others criticized the Marines for not doing enough to prevent
violence. Defense officials say there are more than 1,600 U.S. troops in
Haiti, among them about 1,500 Marines.
   Col. Charles Gurganus said Marines were able to shoot and kill one
gunman, but he said the peacekeepers' mission did not include disarmament.
That was up to police, he said, although he indicated peacekeepers would
lend a hand if asked.
   Disarmament is an age-old debate in Haiti, where everchanging rebel and
opposition forces stash weapons for the next uprising.
   International forces helped reinstate Aristide in 1994 after a 1991
military coup, and many have criticized peacekeepers and even Aristide
himself for failing to disarm the soldiers. Later, he was accused of arming
street gangs that terrorized his political opponents.
   Some say that helped lead to his downfall. Aristide fled Feb. 29 amid
growing anger over corruption and human rights abuses.
   Aristide "made a big mistake sending us home with our guns" said rebel
Remissainthe Ravix. "There's no such thing as the former Haitian army now.
We have the weapons and the expertise to take the country."
   Chief rebel leader Guy Philippe said Sunday's attack never would have
happened if his men had not been asked to lay down their arms, and he
warned that his followers would return to battle if the peacekeepers did
not disarm Aristide loyalists blamed for Sunday's attack.
   Monday afternoon, Philippe met with opposition leaders to discuss
bringing back Haiti's once-murderous army.
   Facing a growing threat of violence, interim President Boniface
Alexandre urged Haitians "to keep calm," adding: "No one has the right to
carry out justice by themselves." Prime Minister Yvon Neptune called on
police to collect weapons.
   Opposition leader Charles Henry Baker, who generally supports the
multinational force, predicted that the crisis would claim both Haitian and
peacekeeper lives.
   "The U.S. forces will have to be very careful to avoid losing any men,"
he said.
   Aristide fled a week ago amid a bloody rebellion and international
pressure to step down. Now peacekeepers are hoping to assist the
desertion-plagued Haitian police so that officers can pick up their share
of foot patrols and the foreign forces "can stay inside their tanks," Baker
said.
   But U.S. officials say police here are devastated and demoralized,
facing the corruption and thuggery that long ago entwined itself with
politics.
   There is also resentment at yet another intervention.
   "I'm happy to be back in Haiti," said Gen. James T. Hill, commander of
the U.S. Southern Command, "but also sad to be back in Haiti under these
circumstances."
   Hill was in Haiti in 1994 to help to restore Aristide to power after a
1991 military coup.
   This time around, U.S. officials say, they are not backing any leader,
leaving the question of who will guide Haiti out of its chaos.
   U.S. Ambassador James Foley called Friday for "the formation of an
independent, neutral government that will deal with the business of
governance in this country, a government of national unity."
   "This is a critical opportunity," Foley said, "to turn the corner on the
violence and all the problems that have afflicted the country."
   Most Port-au-Prince residents greet Marine patrols with mild curiosity,
but there is little obedience to the Marines' hand signals and shouted
commands in English. Traffic rules have long been ignored here, and Marine
convoys, however heavily armed, aren't going to change that.
   At the Port au Prince airport, the Marines' base, dozens of Haitians,
mainly young men, crowded around a gate guarded by Marines, in the hope of
getting jobs.
   "All these people want jobs. We can't give them jobs," said Marine Cpl.
Ken Jones, 21, of Evansville, Ind.
   The very weight of the Marine presence, intended to discourage
resistance, at times breeds anger. During a protest Friday, one Aristide
supporter bared his chest to the Marines guarding the palace and screamed
"Shoot me! Go ahead, you cowards, shoot me!"