23751: (pub) Chamberlain: Policekeepers guard police station after attack (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   GONAIVES, Nov 7 (AP) -- Argentine U.N. peacekeepers guarded the police
station in Haiti's third-largest city Sunday, a day after an attack by
armed men led officers to flee, underscoring the precarious security
situation in the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
   Two dozen police reinforcements also arrived from Port-au-Prince.
   Police and U.N. peacekeepers, meanwhile, said they had met rebel leaders
who have roots in a Gonaives street gang and agreed to hold regular talks
to help keep order.
   Supporters of those rebel leaders attacked the police station on
Saturday while officers fled. No one was injured.
   A rebel leader, Winter Etienne, said following the talks with
peacekeepers, members of the Front for National Resistance would now carry
weapons and wear badges while helping to police the city.
   But Jean Lafaille, regional commander for the U.N. civil police, said
rebels would not be permitted to carry guns, and if they did would be
arrested. He said the U.N. peacekeepers instead hope to collaborate with
rebels by using them as an information source.
   "They know what's going on. They know everything," Lafaille said.
   Aid trucks carrying food and clothes to survivors of catastrophic floods
repeatedly have been attacked by men armed with stones and guns. The aid is
needed for hungry survivors of Tropical Storm Jeanne, which left 1,900 dead
and more than 900 missing in September floods, many in Gonaives.
   "We must stop the pillaging of trucks so people can eat," Etienne said.
"We must accompany U.N. peacekeepers in getting the bandits."
   Etienne has been a harsh critic of the U.N. force, and has warned that
interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's government must do more to rebuild
Gonaives or face the possibility of another revolt -- like the one that
culminated in the Feb. 29 ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   Gonaives Police Commissioner Bastien Herve said he and peacekeepers met
with rebel leaders at city hall Saturday following the chaotic clashes that
prompted police to flee.
   The violence began after police arrested four gang members Friday night
on suspicion of attacking and looting aid trucks. Fellow gang members then
threatened to rush the police station and shot at it from a distance,
police said. No one was wounded.
   U.N. peacekeepers and rebel leaders said they were then called by police
to help defuse the situation, and both groups arrived at the same time.
   U.N. soldiers, believing the rebels had come to attack, fired into the
air and forcefully confiscated guns from Front leader Butteur Metayer and
others, Herve and Lafaille said. In the melee, Metayer was knocked to the
ground and was unconscious for a time before coming to, Etienne said.
   When Metayer's supporters heard of the confrontation in Saturday morning
radio broadcasts, they were angry and mobbed the police station, Etienne
said. Herve said the crowd fired shots as officers fled.
   More than 100 people ransacked and looted the building. Police said 18
prisoners escaped and several firearms were stolen along with furniture and
documents.
   None of the city's 40 police had returned to work by Sunday. The two
dozen reinforcements sat and chatted in the station, some sipping Dominican
rum.
   Rebels including ex-soldiers and gang members in Gonaives staged the
February revolt that led up to Aristide's ouster. They began the rebellion
by attacking Gonaives' former police station and killing officers. The old
police station was reduced to rubble, and a new one has since been opened
in another building.
   About 500 U.N. peacekeepers are based in Gonaives, many of them
Argentines. They are part of a 5,000-member U.N. force seeking to stabilize
Haiti.