21450: (Chamberlain) Haitian ex-rebels challenge U.S. on reviving army (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, April 20 (Reuters) - Haiti's interim government
will allow many former soldiers who drove out its elected president to
become police, but a rebel leader said on Tuesday his men would revive the
disbanded army instead.
     "We are the Haitian army and we exist," said ex-army Col. Remissainthe
Ravix, who fought alongside rebel chiefs Guy Philippe and Louis Jodel
Chamblain during an uprising in February that sent President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide into exile.
      Ravix, who claims to command 1,681 former soldiers, told Reuters that
none of his men would join the police.
     "We are a constitutional force just like them," he said, surrounded by
heavily armed men in camouflage uniforms.
     A man hoping to join the Haitian National Police was killed on Tuesday
and many were hurt in a stampede as thousands of Haitians sought jobs with
the force, a police academy official said.
     Gerry Prophete, 23, was crushed to death, said Jean Yonel Trecil,
inspector general of the police academy in Port-au-Prince.
     Eight people were hospitalized with injuries, many more were hurt and
recruiting was temporarily suspended, he said.
     The stampede occurred a day after Haitian authorities began recruiting
police to fill a security gap that has worsened since Aristide's departure.
     "The crime rate has increased. It is a fact. But the problem is that
the police don't have enough numbers," Justice Minister Bernard Gousse
said.
     Haiti had about 3,500 policemen before the uprising. But many fled the
country or abandoned their posts in fear of their lives during the revolt.
Others have been fired by the interim authorities.
     Gousse said some 20,000 officers would be needed to police Haiti,
which now has just 2,000 police for 8 million people.
     Haiti's military overthrew Aristide, the Caribbean nation's first
democratically elected president, shortly after he took office in 1991.
Aristide disbanded the army after he was returned to power by a U.S.-led
military invasion in 1994.
     He began serving a second five-year term in 2001 but was driven into
exile on Feb. 29 amid the uprising led by rebels, many of them former
soldiers. More than 200 people were killed during the uprising.
     Haiti is tentatively set to hold elections next year. The interim
government has said it will leave it up to the next government to decide
the fate of the army.
     The United States, which pressured Aristide to step down in February,
has urged Haiti not to revive its army, which has a long history of
launching coups.
     Ravix said the United States has no right to interfere "with our
efforts to take back possession of our barracks."
     U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a report to the Security
Council that stabilizing Haiti will require a U.N. peacekeeping mission of
more than 8,000 troops and civilian police over the next two years.
     Ravix said Aristide's decision to dismantle the army was
unconstitutional and called on interim authorities to pay the former
soldiers 10 years' back salary.
     "They have to pay us because the army never ceased to exist," said
Ravix.
     The interim government said it would let rebel ex-soldiers into the
police force, but would screen them to determine if they had been involved
in serious human rights abuses.
     Thousands of people lined up in front of the police academy's gate all
day on Monday and on Tuesday trying to register to fill 800 open slots.
     Some said they want to become police officers to serve their country.
Others said they had no alternative.
     "I just want to get a job," said Paul Gelin, 24, who had been at the
gate of the academy since before dawn on Tuesday but could not get in.