23346: (Chamberlain) Haitian politicians surrender (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 2 (AP) -- Three Haitian politicians allied with
ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide surrendered to police Saturday
after barricading themselves in a radio station for six hours, denying
involvement in clashes that have killed at least 14 people.
   The three politicians said police intended to arrest them on weapons
charges. They were led out of Radio Caraibes in handcuffs Saturday night
after a judge entered with an arrest warrant to negotiate their surrender.
   "They are kidnapping me. They have no reason to arrest me. It is an
illegal arrest," former Senate president Yvon Feuille said, appealing to
Aristide supporters not to respond with violence as he was led away.
   At least five men were killed Friday by gunmen outside the home of an
anti-Aristide community leader in the seaside slum Village de Dieu,
residents said Saturday.
   Police also fired on a peaceful demonstration of Aristide supporters in
the neighborhood of Bel Air on Friday, killing two young men, said Anne
Sosin, a human rights monitor of the Institute for Justice and Democracy in
Haiti.
   Radio Metropole reported one civilian shot dead in a pro-Aristide
demonstration Friday, while Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said police had
killed two gang leaders Thursday in fighting in Cite Soleil, a seaside slum
teeming with Aristide loyalists.
   The headless bodies of three police officers turned up Friday. They,
along with a fourth policeman, were killed in clashes Thursday in the
capital Port-Au-Prince, police said.
   "Aristide's partisans have begun an urban guerrilla operation that they
call Operation Baghdad," human rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said
Saturday. "The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are
meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in Haiti."
   Aristide's Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of
commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Aristide's first government.
They are demanding an end to the "occupation" by foreign troops --
referring to the U.S.-led force that followed Aristide's February ouster
and U.N. peacekeepers who have taken over since June.
   Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, has accused U.S. agents of
kidnapping him when he was flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-chartered jet amid
a bloody rebellion. But the U.S. government insists Aristide left of his
own free will.
   In the Village de Dieu -- which means Village of God -- several people
fearing for their lives abandoned homes after the five men were killed
Friday. The anti-Aristide activist who lived in the home targeted, Jean
Renald, escaped and went into hiding, residents said.
   "When the shooting started, everybody ran," said Andre Denache, 31, who
said he saw gunmen firing at the men standing outside Renald's home before
sunset.
   One of those killed, 23-year-old Mackenson Simeon, was ordered to lie
down and was shot twice in the head and neck, his sister Roselaine Simeon
said.
   "I don't know why they did it, because he didn't have any enemies," she
said, adding that the family had called police but no one came.
   The bodies were taken away in ambulances, leaving blood staining the
ground.
   "The attackers are gangsters, political opportunists who are taking
advantage of the three-day commemoration to terrorize the people, to
destabilize the country to make it easier to rob and rape," said Jean
Louis, a 30-year-old mechanic in the slum of crumbling cinderblock homes.
"Their power is fire power, not persuasion."
   Lavalas party officials said their demonstrations were peaceful and
blamed the interim government and anti-Aristide infiltrators for the
violence. "No effective step was taken to ensure the security of the
demonstrators," Lavalas party spokesman Gilbert Angerville told Radio
Metropole.
   The three politicians barricaded themselves inside Radio Caraibes'
offices after appearing on the air Saturday.
   They denied involvement in any crime. Feuille said police told him they
had found weapons in a car outside belonging to one of the three, but he
denied the car belonged to them.
   "We came here to say it is necessary to make peace," former Sen. Gerard
Gilles said hours before he was arrested along with Feuille and Roudy
Herivaux, former president of the Chamber of Deputies.
   Earlier Saturday, another Lavalas official, former Chamber of Deputies
member Joseph Axene, was arrested outside the station on a separate warrant
for an unknown offense, the Haitian broadcaster Radio Megastar reported.
   Some Haitians are criticizing the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to
control the violence and the country's chamber of commerce denounced "the
inaction of the U.N. multinational force" in a statement.
   "We're doing the best we can," U.N. spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou
said. "Right now it's difficult to be everywhere."
   The aftermath of Tropical Storm Jeanne, which killed more than 1,550 and
left some 900 missing two weeks ago, has tied up some 750 of the 3,000 U.N.
peacekeeping troops in Haiti.
   Most streets vendors in the capital stayed home Saturday as Aristide
supporters took to the streets. Masked gunmen fired into the air before
dawn in the traditionally pro-Aristide neighborhood of Bel Air, radio
station Signal FM reported.
   Police also came under heavy gunfire when they retrieved the headless
bodies of the officers found a day earlier, police spokeswoman Jesse Coicou
told Radio Metropole. Some people in the area stoned cars, residents said.
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   Associated Press reporters Amy Bracken in Gonaives and Michael Norton in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.