21619: (Chamberlain) Haiti remains volatile, crime rising, UN reports (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     UNITED NATIONS, April 29 (Reuters) - Haiti remains volatile and crime
is on the rise two months after deployment of a U.S.-led multinational
peacekeeping force to help restore order there, the United Nations reported
on Thursday.
     Contacts between the multinational force and Haitian armed groups
"show that stability has not yet been reached, as these groups do not want
to disarm and are waiting for compensation or official recognition," the
U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in its latest
Situation Report.
     About 25,000 people in the country have weapons, according to a survey
conducted by the Organization of American States and the U.N. Development
Program.
     The force has improved security but its small size of 3,700 soldiers
limits its impact, the report said, noting the United States sent 20,000
troops into Haiti in 1994 to restore President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to
power after a coup.
     Aristide left Haiti on Feb. 29 under pressure from the international
community as an armed rebellion threatened the capital Port-au-Prince.
After he left, the U.N. Security Council authorized the multinational force
to restore order.
     Aristide, who later charged he had been forced out of power by the
United States, is in Jamaica, and one condition of his stay is that he
refrain from activity that would appear to set the stage for a return to
power.
     The Security Council has called for a U.N. peacekeeping force to take
over from the U.S.-led force in early June.
     U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan recommended recently that up to
6,700 troops and 1,622 civilian police make up the U.N. mission for an
initial two-year period.
     A final decision is up to the Security Council, which has set
closed-door talks on Friday on Annan's proposals.
     The U.N. report said Haitian police forces were slowly returning to
work after the rebellion but remain understaffed, with no police at all in
some towns in the northwest.
     The Haitian national police force now numbers 2,300 officers across
the country, and there were plans to recruit an additional 2,700, the
report said.
     Some 15,000 applicants showed up at an April 20 recruitment drive, and
one person was killed and 23 injured in the resulting melee, it said.