20377: (Chamberlain) Haiti police begin rounding up Aristide associates (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Christie

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 14 (Reuters) - Haitian police rounded up
supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide over the weekend, and
the impoverished Caribbean country's new police chief warned on Sunday the
jails would be packed in coming weeks.
     With the capital aquiver over Aristide's looming return to the
Caribbean from Africa, police said the arrests were aimed at all wanted
criminals, and not just followers of his Lavalas Family party who remained
behind after a month-long armed revolt and U.S. pressure drove him into
exile on Feb. 29.
     "There's a lot of them" to be arrested, Leon Charles, the new director
general of the Haitian National Police, told Reuters.
     While Charles and other police officials insisted the arrests were not
politically motivated, all six new detainees being held on Sunday at the
station in the upscale Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville were from
Lavalas.
     They included Jacques Anthony Nazaire, in charge of Aristide's car
pool, Rospide Petion, an Aristide supporter known as "12" accused of
attacking opposition radio stations, and Harold Severe, a former deputy
mayor of Port-au-Prince.
     All had been charged with associating with criminal groups.
     A 2,650-strong international peace force led by U.S. Marines did not
appear to have been involved in the arrests.
     "They're chasing after people who were with Aristide," Nazaire told
Reuters through the jailhouse bars. Asked if he expected a fair trial, he
said: "I can't hope for anything. If there was a real effort at
reconciliation, this wouldn't be happening."
     Charles acknowledged his police force would not immediately go after
convicted human rights abusers and mass killers who fought with the armed
rebels that helped send Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected
leader, into exile.
     "The government has to make a decision about the rebels. That's over
my head," Charles said at the Petionville police station after racing up to
it in a well-guarded black Toyota Landcruiser.
     As the authorities under new interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue
appeared to be cracking down, Aristide prepared to return to the Caribbean
from Africa. His expected visit to Jamaica, a mere 115 miles (185 km) from
Haiti, has alarmed the new Haitian government and enlivened his followers.
     A champion of the poor and father of Haitian democracy who faced
increasing accusations of corruption and despotism, the former slum priest
has accused Washington of kidnapping him.
     White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice repeated the
United State's adamant denial of the claim.  "The Haitian people need to
move forward," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.
     "And the best thing that President Aristide can do for his people is
to now go into the background and let them try and achieve the kind of
democratic process and progress that they were unable to achieve under
him," she said.
     It was not certain on Sunday when Aristide will leave Africa for
Jamaica.
     A delegation including Randall Robinson, former head of black U.S.
lobby group TransAfrica, and U.S. congresswoman Maxine Waters arrived on
Sunday in the Central African Republic to whisk him away.
     Jamaican lawmaker Sharon Hay Webster told reporters the goal was to
arrange for the ousted leader to see his two young U.S.-based children.
Aristide has not been granted asylum in Jamaica.
     A government official in the Republic's capital Bangui said it was
unlikely the delegation would leave before Monday, as President Francois
Bozize, who seized power in a coup d'etat on March 15 last year, would want
to see them.
     Latortue, a former foreign minister and U.N. official named by a
council of "wise men" to pick a new Cabinet after Aristide's fall, has
slammed Jamaica for "an unfriendly act."
     In the slums of Port-au-Prince where Aristide still has support,
residents say they hope his proximity to Haiti will pave the way for his
eventual return, and stop what they say are reprisal killings and
harassment.
     Hospital officials say 30 to 40 bodies a day have arrived at the
capital's main morgue since the revolt began on Feb. 5, and they are
continuing to show up.
     Enraged at the loss of the only Haitian leader they say has ever cared
about them, slum-dwellers have clashed with U.S. Marines. The Marines have
killed six people since arriving.

    (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva and Ibon Villelabeitia in
Port-au-Prince and Jean-Lambert Ngouandji in Bangui)