21008: Holmstead: Canadian Press: Haiti's rebel leader says he'll give in to police, but vows to kill Aristide (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

FROM: John Holmstead     <cyberkismet4@yahoo.com>


Haiti's rebel leader says he'll give in to police, but
vows to kill Aristide
Mon Mar 29,12:06 PM ET

PAISLEY DODDS

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti (CP) - A convicted assassin who
commands a group of armed rebels held high-level talks
Monday about surrendering power to police in Haiti's
second city, even as he vowed to kill ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide if he returns from exile.

The contradictory messages underscore difficulties
facing a U.S.-backed interim government criticized for
praising the rebels and forming alliances with shadowy
leaders like Louis-Jodel Chamblain, co-leader of a
disbanded army death squad.


Chamblain's rebels still control much of northern
Haiti, manning police stations they torched during the
rebellion and patrolling armed through the same cities
French troops are protecting.


A small contingent of Haitian police officers who fled
the rebels have returned to their posts but they lack
weapons and vehicles looted during the fighting, and a
clear mandate from the interim government of Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue.


Chamblain told The Associated Press that his rebels
would surrender control Monday of two police stations
in Cap-Haitien, the northern port of 500,000 that is
Haiti's second-largest city, and was considering
ceding control of others in the north.


"We're talking and we're working with the police,"
Chamblain said. "We're co-operating and we're trying
to work together."


But he was not prepared to make any concessions to the
ousted Aristide. Once wildly popular, Aristide had
lost support as he failed to make good on promises to
improve life in the hemisphere's most impoverished
country and responded to growing opposition by using
police and street gangs to attack his critics.


A street gang that once supported Aristide turned on
him to start the rebellion Feb. 5 in the northern city
of Gonaives, and soon was joined by ex-soldiers like
Chamblain, who returned from exile to overrun half the
country and were preparing to attack the capital when
Aristide fled Feb. 29.


Chamblain claimed Aristide sent his henchmen to kill
Chamblain's pregnant wife in 1991, as Aristide was
warning the army was threatening to topple him.


"We're enemies," said Chamblain, outside a hillside
hotel his rebels have frequented since taking control
of Cap-Haitien Feb. 22. "If Aristide was here right
now, I would do to him exactly what he had the courage
to do to my wife and unborn child."


Aristide, who could not be reached for comment at his
temporary exile in neighbouring Jamaica, was ousted by
the army in September 1991 just months after he was
elected Haiti's first democratically elected leader,
and was restored in 1994 by a U.S. intervention.


This time, the United States refused pleas for an
intervention to save Aristide, accusing him of running
a corrupt and abusive government, and only sent troops
the day he fled the country.


Aristide claims the United States forced him from
power, charges the United States vehemently denies but
that the 15-country Caribbean Community is asking the
UN General Assembly to investigate.


The United States is leading a 3,500-strong force of
international peacekeepers. Canada has committed about
450 military personnel to the effort to restore
stability to Haiti.


International human rights groups say the peacekeepers
should arrest people like Chamblain, who was convicted
in his absence and received two sentences of life
imprisonment for his role in the assassinations of
Aristide's Justice Minister Guy Mallary and financier
Antoine Izmery. Chamblain was co-leader of the FRAPH
death squad blamed for killing, torturing and maiming
thousands of Aristide supporters under the coup
regime.


Meanwhile, Aristide officials and supporters say they
are being persecuted by the new government, and dozens
are in hiding, complicating efforts to reunite the
country of eight million torn apart by the rebellion
that killed more than 300 people and injured scores
more.





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