20555: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Rebels take hostages, trade them for leader (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Mar. 17, 2004



Rebels take hostages, trade them for leader

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN

Miami Herald


Haitian rebels kidnapped 13 Dominicans visiting a border city and traded
them for an alleged rebel leader detained in the Dominican Republic,
authorities confirmed Tuesday.

The incident happened over the weekend in the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe,
across from the Dominican Republic's northwestern border town of Dajabón,
said Caciano Lora, governor of the Dominican province that includes Dajabón.

Lora told The Herald that rebels also kidnapped two Dominicans last month to
obtain the release of another rebel leader at the height of a revolt that
helped force former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign and leave
Haiti on Feb. 29.

''We complied with the demand because the lives of Dominicans were at
risk,'' he said in a telephone interview. ``We were told they would
assassinate them if we didn't release their leader. We can't allow them to
kill Dominicans over there.''

The weekend exchange involved a Haitian rebel arrested in Dajabón on Friday
in connection with the shooting deaths of two Dominican soldiers while on
patrol along the border Feb. 14.

RETALIATION

Rebels in Ouanaminthe retaliated with the abduction of 10 Dominican men and
three women who were visiting the local market.

Within hours, the rebels demanded and won the release of John Robert, alias
``Ovep.''

The negotiations with the rebels were done by cellphone and supervised by
Lora, a Dominican army general and a regional prosecutor, Lora said. Efforts
to reach law-enforcement officials for comment were unsuccessful Tuesday.

The exchange, which occurred early Saturday on the bridge connecting the two
nations that share the island of Hispaniola, was widely criticized in the
Dominican Republic.

''We are talking about an armed gang that is boasting of its strengths, that
crosses the border when it wants to and causes provocations, probably
seeking to cause frictions that we Dominicans should avoid,'' said an
editorial Tuesday in the Periodico Hoy newspaper, published in the capital
city of Santo Domingo.

''We have negotiated with an illegitimate group that will not think twice
before committing other provocative acts on the frontier, now that their ego
has been fed with the success of having achieved the exchange,'' the
newspapers stated. ``We hope we are not sorry.''

Two Dominican ranchers kidnapped last month also were exchanged for another
Haitian rebel leader who was in Dominican custody at the time, Lora also
confirmed.

''This is a new phenomenon,'' he said. ``We are in a constant state of
concern. We'd like the U.S. forces [in Haiti] to get to Ouanaminthe because,
right now, there is no one of authority to talk to over there.

``The rebels have de facto control.''

PEACEKEEPERS

The U.S.-led multinational peacekeeping force in Haiti now totals more than
2,700 troops, but it has yet to deploy outside the Haitian capital of
Port-au-Prince.

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