21525: (Chamberlain) Haiti-US (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHELLE FAUL

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, April 23 (AP) -- Six U.S. legislators said Friday they
will push for American troops to extend a three-month mission to stabilize
Haiti, acting at the request of the Caribbean nation's new U.S.-backed
interim leaders.
   The bipartisan delegation, led by Republican Rep. Mark Foley of Florida,
made the announcement at a news conference after a brief visit with interim
President Boniface Alexandre, interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and
other officials.
   "We are hopeful that this will not be just a few short months that we
will be here. We want to be part of helping Haiti in the long term," Foley
said.
   Elijah Cummings, a Florida Democra, said Haiti's leaders told them the
country was "at a critical stage in its history" following the Feb. 29
departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Aristide fled under pressure
from the United States and France, and a popular rebellion led by
ex-soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army.
   "Both the president and prime minister have made it clear that they
would like to see some presence of United States Marines beyond June 1,"
Cummings said. "This is a message that we will take back to the United
States" to ensure Haiti has the security needed for development.
   U.S. Marines arrived within hours of Aristide's hasty departure and lead
a multinational force of 3,600 troops from France, Chile and Canada that is
to hand over to U.N. peacekeepers June 1. About 2,000 of them are
Americans.
   The U.S. legislators gave no details of how many Marines they would like
to see remain in Haiti, nor how they would interact with the U.N. force.
   At the news conference, the legislators -- including three Black Caucus
members and Republican Cass Ballenger of North Carolina, who is president
of the House subcommittee on International Relations for the Western
Hemisphere -- made their statement and left without allowing questions.
   But Latortue said "You must understand that the Black Caucus isn't an
unconditional ally of Aristide. They now realize that they must not be the
ally of one person but should be an ally of Haiti -- and he (Cummings) told
me this."
   Also Friday, the U.S. military announced a new initiative for
disarmament in Haiti, saying they would pay for information leading to arms
caches.
   Lt. Col. David Lapan, a military spokesman, said that under the U.S.
Department of Defense program Haitians could be paid "hundreds or
thousands" of dollars for good information, depending on the size and
quality of weapons recovered.
   Lapan said they did not want to make the mistakes made after the U.S.
intervened in 1994 to restore Aristide and oust a military dictatorship.
Then, thousands of weapons were turned in under a buyback program, but
Lapan said many Haitians just went out and bought guns to sell them to the
Americans at a profit.