23836: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti ex-soldiers warn government over unmet deman (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Disbanded Haitian soldiers
who helped oust ex-president Jean-Bertrand Aristide say they are ready to
take up arms against the U.S.-backed interim government because of unmet
demands for a new army.
     Dressed in camouflage and brandishing automatic rifles, the
ex-soldiers defied Haiti's new authorities to confront them after police
said only they and U.N. troops could carry weapons, conduct patrols and
provide public security.
     The soldiers said on Monday that the announcement last week
constituted a warning that the rebels might soon be disarmed.
     "The police have decided to wage war against us, we are ready to fight
that war," a spokesman, Joseph Jean-Baptiste, said, surrounded by around
three dozen armed men.
     "Aristide thought he was all-mighty, we overthrew him. (Prime Minister
Gerard) Latortue will know the same fate if he decides to ignore the army."
     The former soldiers earlier this year helped lead an armed revolt
against Aristide in the impoverished Caribbean country.
     Aristide, who disbanded the army in 1995 after the coup-prone military
had thrown him out of office three years before, fled into exile on Feb. 29
and was replaced by an appointed interim government.
     At first, the former soldiers and Haiti's new government were allies
and senior government ministers were sympathetic to demands for a new
Haitian army and for 10 years backpay.
     But the soldiers, who are believed to number up to 2,000 and retained
control of many provincial towns after Aristide fled, have become
frustrated at the government's inaction.
     Tensions increased after former soldiers began trickling into the
capital Port-au-Prince in September to put an end to a wave of violence
that has killed 170 people in 10 weeks.
     The violence threatens the success of the Brazilian-led U.N.
peacekeeping mission, which the United Nations says has now reached more
than two-thirds of the authorized strength of 6,700 troops and 1,622
police.
     The Latortue administration has made overtures to the former soldiers.
     Several hundred have been given jobs in the police after what police
commanders call a screening process to weed out human rights offenders and
drug traffickers, and the government has offered "compensation" instead of
backpay.
     U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday that any move
to reconstitute the army was "a bad idea" and also questioned placing
soldiers in the police force.
     Interim Haitian Prime Minister Latortue has also set up a special
agency for veterans affairs and on Monday said he was willing to offer them
other jobs in the civil service.
     None of that was enough, said Jean-Baptiste. His men plan a parade on
Nov. 18, which used to be celebrated as "Army Day," to show their strength
-- and their guns.
     Outsiders, including visiting Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin this
week, say a failure to disarm both sides contributes to insecurity and
disarmament must be carried out to ensure elections in 2005 are free of
intimidation and fear.
     But the head of U.N. peacekeepers, Brazilian Gen. Augusto Heleno
Ribeiro Pereira, said that was not so easy.
     "You don't disarm in five months people that have been armed over the
past 30 years," Heleno told Reuters.