23379: ( Hermantin) Miami-Herald-Armed gangs demand exiled leader's return (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Oct. 05, 2004



HAITI


Armed gangs demand exiled leader's return

BY MICHAEL A.W. OTTEY

mottey@herald.com


Demonstrators armed with machetes and demanding the return of ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took to the streets in Haiti on Monday in
another day of violence that has left 14 dead since last week and led the
Brazilian general in charge of U.N. peacekeepers to complain that his force
is stretched too thin.

The pro-Aristide protests have grown more frequent in recent months, and on
Monday hundreds chanted ''Aristide or death'' as they marched down the
streets of the capital city of Port-au-Prince.

But since Thursday the protests have escalated into deadly shootings. Among
the 14 killed were four police officers, including three who were beheaded.

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue told The Herald that the Aristide
loyalists were trying to intimidate and derail the municipal, legislative
and presidential elections planned for next year.

''Some of those people, it is exactly what they would like, not to have
elections,'' Latortue said. ``We don't want people in Haiti taking power any
more through violence.''

Latortue's government has said the Haitian police do not have the manpower
or training to control Haiti's armed gangs -- both Aristide loyalists and
the rebels who helped topple the former president during a revolt in
February -- and has called on U.N. peacekeepers to act.

The U.N. forces have sent mixed signals about disarming the rebels, at times
maintaining that disarmament is a function of the Haitian police, not the
peacekeepers. But the U.N. Security Council resolution that authorized their
deployment states that disarmament is one of their roles.

Last week, a frustrated Gen. Augusto Ribeiro Pereira, commander of the U.N.
force, told reporters his forces are exhausted from working around the
clock, seven days a week, most recently on aiding victims of Hurricane
Jeanne.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Monday said U.N. Secretary General
Kofi Annan had told him Sunday that he ``feels confident that his people can
manage [the violence] and control it.''

''These are the old Aristide elements and some criminal elements who are
trying to take advantage of the situation,'' Powell told journalists
accompanying him to Brazil.

UNDERSTAFFING

The U.N. Security Council authorized a deployment of 6,700 peacekeepers. But
Denise Cook, a U.N. spokeswoman in New York City, said the number of
peacekeepers now in Haiti stands at 3,091.

Cook said fresh units from Guatemala, Spain, Morocco, Sri Lanka and Nepal
will arrive in Haiti by the end of this month. She said by Dec. 1, the
number of peacekeepers should top 6,000.

''It will bring the number pretty close, if not to the ceiling,'' Cook said.
``There was an appeal last week asking for some of those troops to arrive
sooner.''

Jonas Petit, a spokesman for Aristide's Lavalas Family Party, said the
recent surge in violence and demonstrations is a sign that the Haitian
people want the return of Aristide, a once-popular Catholic priest now
exiled in South Africa.

''The Haitian people . . . have never accepted the coup d'etat,'' Petit, who
lives both in South Florida and New Jersey, told The Herald on Monday.

Petit said what's happening in Haiti ''is a continuation of Feb. 29,'' the
date Aristide left Haiti, and that the Latortue government will have to
continue using force ''again and again'' to control the people.

`DEMOCRATIC RIGHT'

''They can't give anything to the country,'' he said of the Latortue
government, ``so now it's normal for people to demonstrate, to say what they
would like to change. This is their democratic right.''

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