23349: (Chamberlain) Unrest in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 7 (AP) -- Demanding the return of their ousted
president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, young men with machetes, guns and rocks
set alight tires in the street and threatened to behead foreigners after
U.N. troops and police arrested dozens in a sweep through a volatile slum.
   Peacekeepers in armored personnel carriers moved into the Bel Air slum
Wednesday while gunfire crackled and two helicopters roared overhead,
trying to put down a campaign by Aristide loyalists who have carried out
gory beheadings in imitation of Iraqi insurgents.
   The headless body of a man lay in the street in La Salines, another
slum, on Wednesday morning. Three police officers also were decapitated
last week when Aristide supporters stepped up protests demanding his return
from exile in South Africa and launched "Operation Baghdad."
   At least 19 people have been killed in a week of violence in
Port-au-Prince, which relief workers said could paralyze attempts to feed
tens of thousands of hungry survivors in the northwest port city of
Gonaives after devastating floods from Tropical Storm Jeanne last month.
   At least 50 people have been treated for gunshot wounds since Friday at
Port-au-Prince General Hospital, records show. Officials said the hospital
usually treats one or two wounded people a day.
   One angry man in Bel Air on Wednesday thrust a gun into the face of an
Associated Press reporter, yelled expletives against President Bush and
U.N. peacekeepers, then screamed "We are going to kidnap some Americans and
cut off their heads."
   Protesters also have been demanding an end to "the invasion" --
referring to U.S. Marines who flew in the day Aristide left in February and
U.N. peacekeepers who replaced them in June.
   Aristide loyalists blocked streets throughout Bel Air on Wednesday with
torched cars and other debris, just blocks from the National Palace. U.N.
troops and Haitian police surrounded the district Wednesday, searching cars
and people at checkpoints while conducting arrests in the slum.
   Police spokeswoman Jesse Coicou said 75 people were detained for
questioning during the sweep of Bel Air, but officials said no weapons were
found. U.N. spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said it appeared weapons had
been hidden.
   Troops and police withdrew from Bel Air later Wednesday, leaving
deserted streets to men and boys armed with machetes, guns, knives, bottles
and stones. They lit bonfires to block roads with torched cars, tires,
mattresses and furniture.
   Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue -- whom protesters have also
threatened to behead -- accused pro-Aristide street gangs of instigating
the violence. Aristide supporters say the police started it by firing at
unarmed protesters.
   On Tuesday, a dozen young men and children in Bel Air shot a man and
tried unsuccessfully to hack off his head, accusing him of spying for
rebels who overthrew Aristide, said Ninger Napoleon, a reporter for Radio
Antilles who watched the scene.
   Rebel commander Ravix Remissainthe told Radio Metropole the man was a
former soldier.
   Aid workers said the violence threatened to handicap flood relief
efforts in northwestern Haiti. Anne Poulsen of the U.N. World Food Program
said the unrest had scared away workers from the capital's port, where 135
containers with 2,430 tons of food were stuck.
   As the port remained closed, Poulsen said the World Food Program had
asked U.N. troops to provide security "so we don't break the pipeline of
aid going into Gonaives."
   Some 750 of the 3,000 U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti are tied up protecting
relief supplies and trying to keep order at food distributions in Gonaives.
   At least 1,870 were killed by Tropical Storm Jeanne, which drenched
northwestern Haiti for 30 hours beginning Sept. 17. Some 884 people
reported missing, most presumed dead.
   In Gonaives, food aid has failed to reach thousands who are too weak,
sick or old to get into rowdy food lines. More than 100,000 remain hungry,
the International Federation of Red Crescent and Red Cross Societies said.
   Gonaives had never recovered from the February rebellion that began when
a street gang torched government buildings, released jailed criminals and
forced police to flee. Dozens of people were killed.
   ------
   Associated Press writer Stevenson Jacobs in Gonaives contributed to this
report.