23122: (Chamberlain) Haitian police kill three rebels (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 8 (Reuters) - Haitian police and U.N. troops shot
and killed three rebels, and another group of rebels retaliated by briefly
holding a group of policemen hostage on Wednesday.
     Violence has escalated in the last few days as the national police and
rebel former soldiers battle for control of security in Haiti.
     Police killed two rebels who ignored warnings to put down their
weapons at a checkpoint in Port-au-Prince on Tuesday night, Police
Commissioner Fritz Gerald Appolon said. The two wore camouflage uniforms
and rode in a vehicle that had been seized from police and relabeled as an
army vehicle, he said.
    "One of them got off the vehicle with an M-14 (rifle), we ordered him
to lay down the weapon. Instead, he shot at a policeman ... then we replied
and both of them were killed," Appolon told Reuters on Wednesday.
     The two came from Petit-Goave, a southern town seized nearly two weeks
ago by former soldiers who want to re-establish the army, which was
disbanded in 1994 by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     Rebel leader Remissainthe Ravix condemned the killings and said: "We
are preparing an appropriate response to what happened."
     Hours later, a rebel group fired gunshots at a police station in the
central town of Hinche. Police and U.N. troops fired back, killing one of
the rebels, witnesses said.
     In Petit Goave, rebels took four policemen hostage and seized their
weapons, but later released them.
     Ravix fought alongside top rebel leader Guy Philippe during the armed
revolt that toppled Aristide's government in February. He said interim
Prime Minister Gerard Latortue helped finance the revolt, but Latortue's
office declined to comment.
     The rebels called Latortue and other interim government officials
traitors.
     "Latortue told us he would restore the army and satisfy several of our
demands. He did just the contrary. It seems he hasn't learned any lesson
from what happened to Aristide," Ravix told Reuters.
     Haitian police, backed by U.N. troops sent to restore stability to
Haiti, raided the town of Saint-Marc north of Port-au-Prince on Tuesday and
took back the city that rebel former soldiers had seized a day earlier.
     Ravix has refused to meet with a commission named by Latortue to
negotiate a political compromise between the interim government and the
former soldiers.
     Interim authorities have said they will let up to 1,000 former
soldiers join the police force but rejected their demand for 10 years worth
of back wages.