21052: (Chamberlain) Haiti not ready to bring rebels to justice (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Simon Gardner

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 2 (Reuters) - It will be months before
Haiti's crippled police and judiciary will be ready to deal with rebels
accused of rights abuses who still roam free weeks after a bloody
rebellion, new Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said on Friday.
     With the police force in disarray and court houses in ruins after the
February ouster of ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti must first
restore public order and rebuild its justice system before going after its
public enemies, he said.
     "The justice system is not very healthy... It will take some months to
rebuild," Gousse told Reuters in an interview at the rundown Ministry of
Justice in downtown Port-au-Prince. "You can see the derelict situation in
which the police is, the justice system, even the buildings."
     With figures like notorious former paramilitary leader Louis Jodel
Chamblain, a convicted murderer who helped lead the bloody rebellion
against Aristide, still holding sway in the north, Gousse says he had to
tread a fine line.
     Going after heavily armed rebels with depleted, ill-equipped police
and the court system in disarray could "spark off the fire again," he
warned.
     Human rights groups have called on Haiti's new government to arrest
the likes of Chamblain and others accused of involvement in massacres. Some
have also called for probes into alleged corruption by judges.
     Residents in the grimy suburbs of Port-au-Prince meanwhile want a
3,600-strong U.N.-sanctioned multinational force to disarm marauding street
gangs because police are unable to do so. Political reprisals are
commonplace as people take the law into their own hands.
     "Everything will come in due time. It is not that we have forgotten
this issue (of human rights abuses)," Gousse said. "Chamblain's issue will
be dealt with in due time."
     "I have been urged that I have not arrested enough people, but I don't
want a judicial lynching. I want to respect due process," he added.
     The government has, however, gone after supporters of exiled Aristide,
arresting a dozen of his associates and issuing a blacklist banning dozens
more from leaving the country pending investigations of suspected graft.
     Aristide, a former slum priest, was once a champion of Haiti's
democracy but had been increasingly accused of corruption and political
thuggery.
     Members of Aristide's Lavalas Family party say they are the target of
a government witch-hunt.
     Former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune has gone underground after
receiving death threats from rebels -- many of whom the government plans to
incorporate into the police.
     The hardcore rebels are safe from justice for now.
     "What is the most durable legacy, it's not those symbolic trials, it's
to have a justice system working," said Gousse.

(Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva)