23595: (Chamberlain) Police, UN troops remove street barricades (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 24 (Reuters) - Haitian police and U.N.
troops moved into a slum neighborhood on Sunday and cleared street
barricades that had paralyzed a part of the capital plagued by political
violence.
     Armored vehicles and dump trucks rolled into the Bel-Air neighborhood
at 3:30 a.m. Some 200 Haitian police, backed by 100 U.N. troops and
civilian police, cleared away wrecked cars and other debris that had
barricaded the neighborhood since Sept. 30.
     Police established a command post in a Catholic church at the heart of
Bel-Air that has served as a gathering point for protesters, a spokesman
for the U.N. civilian police forces said.
     "It is a physical sweep of the streets ... so that we can return to
normal traffic in this area, or as normal as it can be for these people who
have been essentially taken hostage," said the spokesman, Canadian police
officer Daniel Maskaluk.
     He said there were scattered gunshots and "resistance" during the
operation but had no information on possible injuries.
     The poor neighborhood is full of supporters of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who went into exile amid an armed revolt in
February.
     Aristide supporters calling for his return blocked the streets to keep
out police, whom they accuse of illegally arresting and killing Aristide
supporters. Haiti's police force includes many former soldiers who took
part in the rebellion that drove out Aristide.
     More than 50 people have been killed this month in clashes between
pro- and anti-Aristide gangs in Bel-Air and other slums where the former
president had strong support.
     Most of the killings have occurred in the Cite Soleil slum in the
capital, Port-au-Prince. But streets in Bel-Air have been impassible and
schools and businesses have closed sporadically due to outbreaks of
violence.
     Troops and civilian police officers from Benin, France, Spain, Canada
and Brazil, brought in to stabilize the impoverished Caribbean nation after
Aristide's ouster, participated in the operation.