23750: (pub) Chamberlain: Gonaives police station attacked (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Nov 6 (AP) -- An armed group fired on a police station
in northwestern Haiti on Saturday, prompting officers to flee while
prisoners escaped and more than 100 people started a flurry of looting,
officials said.
   No one was reported killed in the clash in Gonaives, the country's
third-largest city, which left the station empty after looters broke into
the building and carried away furniture and other items, police spokeswoman
Gessy Coicou said.
   The attack happened several hours after a suspected gang member was
arrested for attacking and looting humanitarian aid trucks, said Capt.
Mamie Ward, spokeswoman for the 5,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping mission in
Haiti.
   Shipments of food for victims of recent floods that wiped out much of
Gonaives are commonly attacked by young men armed with guns and stones.
   Ward said peacekeepers helped guard the police station Friday night and
Saturday morning after police received threats of attack. The troops
returned to their base early Saturday, and soon after the attack began.
   Police called the troops for help when the shooting began, but by the
time they returned the police had fled and more than 100 people were
looting, Ward said.
   All those jailed at the station escaped during the melee, said Daniel
Moskaluk, spokesman for the U.N. civil police. He did not know how many
they were, but he said one prisoner was believed to be associated with the
attackers.
   The Haitian broadcaster Radio Vision 2000 reported that the attackers
were from the Artibonite Resistance Front, once a street gang known as the
Cannibal Army that helped lead a February rebellion by attacking the
Gonaives police station and killing officers.
   The rebellion led up to the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
on Feb. 29, and under the subsequent interim government most rebels have
continued to carry arms.
   Rebel leaders have since formed a political party, the Front for
National Reconstruction. Some members recently distributed food to victims
of Tropical Storm Jeanne, which unleashed floods and mudslides in September
that killed some 1,900 and left 900 more missing and presumed dead, most in
Gonaives.
   About 5,000 U.N. peacekeepers are currently in Haiti to provide
stability. They include about 500 Argentine soldiers based in Gonaives.