23598: (Chamberlain) Police and UN troops move into Bel Air (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHELLE FAUL

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 24 (AP) -- Using armored cars and earth movers, U.N.
peacekeepers and Haitian police moved early Sunday into an area controlled
by militants loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, protecting
workers removing burned out cars used as road blocks.
   One police officer was shot and killed, apparently in early resistance
that ended when scores of troops moved in, said Brazilian Col. Luiz-Felipe
Carbonell.
   The chant of hymns wafted from church services and a U.N. helicopter
roared overhead as the operation got under way in Bel Air, an area of
concrete homes on a hill overlooking the National Palace.
   Dozens of Brazilian troops and police arrived two days after the
government said it would root out gangs that have blockaded areas of
certain neighborhoods.
   On Friday, interim President Boniface Alexandre called the gangs
"terrorists" and urged people in several troubled neighborhoods to
cooperate with authorities to "expel these bandits."
   Sunday's operation began at 5 a.m. and continued through the morning,
becoming the first to last several hours in Bel Air since troubles began
Sept. 30. Previous incursions into the neighborhood were brief because
gunmen fired on authorities.
   Violence has left some 55 people dead in recent weeks.
   Daniel Moskaluk, a spokesman for an international police force training
Haitian officers, said Jordanian and Haitian riot police would remain in
the neighborhood.
   Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue has defended the government's
decision to aggressively root out the pro-Aristide street gangs it blames
for the violence.
   Peacekeepers used a sledgehammer to knock down a second-story wall of a
corner building in Bel Air that Gen. Americo Salvador said was used by
snipers.
   A bulldozer pushed burnt out cars down Rue Macajoux to the Church of Our
Lady of Perpetual Help, where front loaders lifted them into garbage
trucks. Graffiti scrawled across the locked church doors said, "Return
Aristide" and "Long live Aristide."
   Aristide fled Feb. 29, accused of corruption. He left Haiti on a
U.S.-chartered plane as ex-soldiers leading a bloody rebellion neared
Port-au-Prince.
   Now in South Africa, Aristide has accused the United States of
orchestrating his ouster and insists he remains Haiti's democratically
elected leader. The United States denies his charges.
   One officer in Bel Air struck the butt of a young woman several times as
she walked down the street and crowded her into an alley where a group of
officers giggled. He let her go when he saw a journalist watching.
   Asked why he had done that, the officer said the woman's husband had
been seen firing at police and that he wanted her to tell him where the man
was.
   Human rights lawyer Renan Hedouville said Sunday that his organization
has received reports of women and young girls being raped in many of the
troubled areas in Port-au-Prince, with the most reports coming from Bel
Air. Many of the reports involve former Haitian soldiers who helped oust
Aristide, he said.
   One fearful family peered from behind a door in Bel Air. A woman, who
said she was scared to give her name said she locks her doors at 6 p.m.
every evening because bandits start shooting. She said the youngest of her
four children -- a 3-year-old -- trembled each time gunshots crackled.
   The woman, a widow, said she has resorted to prostitution to make ends
meet but the recent violence has prevented her from going out at night.
With less than $1 left, she said her family has only bread, sugar and water
to eat.
   "All our neighbors have run away," she said. "We would run away too if
we had somewhere to go."