21419: (Chamberlain) Chilean peacekeepers in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHELLE FAUL

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 19 (AP) -- Chilean troops are preparing to take up
posts in central Haiti, extending the peacekeeping presence where as many
as 400 rebels still hold sway, a military spokesman said Monday.
   Haiti's interim leaders, meanwhile, met with former members of ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's government to form a council that will
organize 2005 elections.
   Some 3,600 peacekeepers from the United States, France, Canada and Chile
are trying to help Haiti's meager police force, after hundreds of officers
fled amid a three-week popular rebellion that ousted Aristide on Feb. 29.
   To extend the peacekeepers' reach into areas of rebel control, Chilean
troops will deploy next week to Hinche, a central town of 100,000 that
straddles a strategic crossroads, said Chilean military spokesman Lt. Col.
Renato Rondanelli.
   The rebels, led by former Haitian Army Master Sgt. Joseph Jean-Baptiste,
who seized the town in the second week of the rebellion, have accepted the
plan.
   "He is ready to allow the Chilean forces to deploy and to do patrols,"
Rondanelli said.
   The vacuum of leadership caused by the rebellion has forced peacekeepers
to negotiate with rebels, many of whom like Jean-Baptiste come from the
former Haitian army disbanded by Aristide when he was first ousted in a
1991 coup.
   In many towns, the rebels outnumber the police. In Hinche, there are
between 200 to 400 former soldiers and only 15 officers from the
demoralized police force, Rondanelli said.
   Meanwhile, Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was holding private
talks with former Cabinet Minister Leslie Voltaire and other officials from
Aristide's Lavalas Family party to get them to name a representative to a
provisional electoral council.
   After nine hours of negotiations, Voltaire said the two sides were
drafting a memorandum of understanding that would allow Lavalas to name a
representative, which the party so far has refused to do unless several
demands are met.
   Voltaire did not say what was in the memorandum but said one of the
Lavalas demands was to end the alleged repression of party members by the
new U.S.-backed government. Dozens of former government and party members
have been prohibited from leaving the country.
   Latortue has denied persecuting Lavalas members but blamed armed
Aristide militants, otherwise known as "chimeres," for weeks of insecurity
marked by kidnappings and violence.
   "Chimeres are the first that should be put on the ropes," Latortue said.