23451: (Chamberlain) Haiti vows crackdown on anniversary of end of coup (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Haiti's U.S.-backed
government vowed on Friday to crush "terrorist" supporters of exiled
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as gunfire crackled in the capital on the
10th anniversary of the end of a coup against him.
     Police took up positions in streets deserted because of fears that two
weeks of violence were about to spiral out of control and surrounded the
Port-au-Prince slum of Bel-Air where Aristide supporters gathered.
     Gunfire erupted from the slum but it was unclear who was shooting.
Police kept their distance from Aristide backers marking a decade since he
was returned to power by U.S. Marines following three years of military
rule.
     Members of Aristide's Lavalas Party demanded the release of imprisoned
allies, ex-soldiers who helped topple him continued to trickle into the
capital and the interim government said it was giving police unspecified
special powers to fight "terrorism."
     "A few months ago we heard a slogan, 'We are not afraid, we will never
be afraid.' That is now the slogan of the Haitian national police," Justice
Minister Bernard Gousse told Radio Metropole, quoting a Creole song from
Haitian-American rap artist Wyclef Jean.
     "On the contrary, the police will now put all their forces out on the
street to make sure that those terrorists who are preventing people from
going around their business and children from going to school get what they
deserve."
     Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, has been tense since
street gangs and ex-soldiers launched a monthlong armed revolt against
Aristide and cut short his second term. He fled into exile on Feb. 29 and
is in South Africa.
     A pro-Aristide rally in the capital on Sept. 30 sparked two weeks of
violence after police shot at demonstrators. At least 50 people have been
killed including five police.
     Brazil, which leads the U.N. force in Haiti, on Thursday demanded
reinforcements, and aid agencies say the violence is preventing them from
delivering enough food to 200,000 people left homeless in the north after
floods a month ago in which 3,000 people died.
     The interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and officials
in Washington blame Lavalas for using violence to exploit the chaos left by
the floods.
     Lavalas blames the interim authorities for arresting dozens of its
members, including former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, on vague charges and
often without warrants.
     "The people in the slums are also human, we also have a right to
life," said Bel-Air resident Rosny Jean-Francois, 27. "The government has
decided to kill or arrest anybody who supports Aristide."