23476: Naab: Reuters: Chinese arrive in Haiti to help restore order (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Sara Naab <saranaab@hotmail.com>


Chinese Arrive in Haiti to Help Restore Order
Sun Oct 17, 2004 10:15 PM ET

By Joseph Guyler Delva
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - A contingent of 95 riot police from China
arrived in Haiti on Sunday to help restore order in the Caribbean nation
plagued with gang and political violence that has killed more than 50 people
over the past two weeks.

The police joined a small advance team of Chinese who arrived last month.
They will become part of a Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping mission to
stabilize the country.

"We have received a three month-long special training for Haiti prior to our
arrival here, we needed to know about the people," said officer Zhao Xiao
Xung at the Port-au-Prince international airport.

Former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled Haiti in February, forced out
by a month-long armed rebellion and U.S. and French pressure to quit.

U.N. officials have been urging contributing countries to step up efforts to
send in troops to join the peacekeepers and help the interim government that
took over from Aristide cope with worsening unrest in the poorest country in
the Americas.

The U.N. force so far has just 2,600 soldiers, a fraction of the 6,700
troops and 1,600 police authorized for Haiti. The U.N. mission took over
peacekeeping in Haiti in June from a U.N.-sanctioned multinational force led
by U.S. Marines.

Violence has hit the capital since September and interim Prime Minister
Gerard Latortue has accused Aristide's Lavalas Family party of masterminding
the unrest in order to undermine the government -- charges Lavalas has
rejected.

Parish priest Father Gerard Jean-Juste, who was arrested and detained last
Wednesday on criminal violence charges, accused the interim government on
Sunday of persecuting its political opponents and said his arrest was
arbitrary.

"I reject those charges; I had never been involved in violence, it will
never be the case," Father Jean-Juste told Reuters from prison. "I firmly
condemn violence, wherever it may come from," said Jean-Juste, one of the
most popular religious figures among Haiti's legions of poor.

Haitian police, backed by U.N. troops, have raided several Port-au-Prince
slums to try to control armed gangs loyal to Aristide. Two U.N. troops were
wounded this month.

The priest said he had been arrested for his opinions and for condemning
arrests of Lavalas party members and Aristide supporters, while ex-rebels
who committed crimes during the armed revolt that pushed Aristide out
remained free.

Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and Justice Minister Bernard Gousse have
repeatedly rejected charges they have applied double standards. Gousse said
the police had information that the priest might have been implicated in the
recent violence.