23333: (Chamberlain) Haiti vows muscular reply to spree that kills 45 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Haitian officials vowed on
Tuesday a "muscular response" to the killing of at least 45 people,
including several policemen, in five days of violence by criminal gangs in
the impoverished country.
     The Haitian national police and U.N. officials met on Tuesday to
devise a strategy to halt the violence as the U.N. mission to stabilize
Haiti, MINUSTAH, struggles to keep an uneasy peace.
     "The Haitian police and the MINUSTAH are working together. The actions
and operations will be decided together so that those who decide the
country should not move forward are given a muscular response," Justice
Minister Bernard Gousse told reporters.
     Several policemen have been killed, including two who had been
decapitated, over the past few days, Haitian authorities said, blaming
partisans of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide for those killings and
other violence in the capital.
     Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said groups loyal to Aristide
have adopted a strategy to kidnap policemen and decapitate them in a new
"Bagdad operation," a reference to the ongoing beheadings in Iraq. But
Aristide supporters deny it.
     Following the beheadings, police raided strongholds of Aristide
supporters in the Port-au-Prince slums of Bel-Air, Martissant,
Fort-Tout-Rond, killing at least 15 people.
     And in the capital's largest slum, Cite Soleil, the mayor Reynald
Jolifils said on Radio Metropole on Tuesday that more than 30 people have
been killed during the past couple of days.
     Aristide, who was accused by his opponents of corruption and
despotism, fled Haiti on Feb. 29 in the face of an armed revolt and U.S.
and French pressure to quit. He is now living in exile in South-Africa.
     In June, a Brazilian-led 3,000 U.N. peacekeeping force took over the
task of stabilizing Haiti from a U.N.-sanctioned multinational interim
force led by U.S. Marines. U.N. peacekeepers should mount to about 8,000 in
November, officials say.