24010: (pub) Chamberlain: A Troubled Haiti Struggles (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(NYTimes, 2 Jan 05)


A Troubled Haiti Struggles to Gain Its Political Balance

By MICHAEL KAMBER



PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - Jacques Rafael stood in front of the Moderne Store
in downtown Port-au-Prince where his boss, a 52-year-old woman, was
recently shot to death by members of the gangs who control this city's
slums.

"They say the former government was no good," he said, referring to the
government of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, overthrown in February. "But when
Aristide was here, we could stay open until 10 p.m. Now we can't even stay
open until 4 in the afternoon."

Around the corner, at the nearby school, Lycée Pétion, the students were
headed home at 9 a.m. The police recently wounded three students there
during a shootout with gang members, and the fearful teachers had stayed
home, as they do many days now.

"We're the ones paying for what is going on," said Franzo Caryce, 19. "We
expected more from Latortue."

Nine months after taking office, the interim government of Prime Minister
Gérard Latortue is besieged by mounting criticism from every sector of
society. Recent street fighting, some of it involving gangs that supported
Mr. Aristide, has claimed an estimated 200 lives and left much of
Port-au-Prince's business district deserted. Many business owners are in
hiding after a wave of kidnappings, and rebels control large swaths of the
country.

"Latortue is not serious about the security situation," said a member of a
government panel who insisted on anonymity. "The civil wars in Somalia and
Lebanon started like this and that's where we are heading."

Many politicians and experts said in recent interviews that the election
scheduled for next November to restore democracy here was in danger of
being compromised or canceled.

"Latortue may or may not survive as prime minister - that's almost beside
the point," said Henry Carey, a professor and Haiti scholar at the
University of Georgia. "He shows no credible signs of holding elections. He
doesn't have an election commission that is working."

Outside the country, there is also growing alarm. "Haiti is on the verge of
becoming a permanently failed state hemorrhaging instability throughout the
Caribbean in the form of refugees, violence and drugs," said a report in
November from the International Crisis Group.

Two recent studies prepared by experts on Haiti for the United States
Southern Command of the United States Army refer to "the now-discredited
Latortue government" and recommend consideration of a plan to turn the
country into an international protectorate, an idea openly debated in the
Haitian media.

Mr. Latortue did not appear for an interview scheduled by his staff, and
his spokesman, Mike Joseph, would not answer questions.

The few defenders of Mr. Latortue, a former United Nations bureaucrat and
television talk show host, say he has been hamstrung by a lack of money -
little of the $1.4 billion promised by donors has been delivered. They say
his reputation has been unfairly tainted by his dependency on United
Nations peacekeepers regarded as too passive.

"They are here on vacation" is the phrase uttered again and again by
Haitians when speaking of the 7,000-member force.

The United Nations force worked at half-strength for nearly five months
after its arrival and has been reluctant to act against armed groups. "I
command a peacekeeping force, not an occupation force," said Gen. Augusto
Heleno Ribeiro, head of the Brazilian contingent, in response to calls by
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other international leaders to act
more aggressively. "We are not there to carry out violence."

United Nations officials say they are here to support Haitian police
efforts at disarmament. Experts estimate that Haiti needs 100,000 police
officers, though. The current force numbers about 3,000, many of whom have
little training and equipment.

In the town of Mirebalais, Haitian radio reported recently that rebel
forces disarmed the Haitian police.

As Mr. Powell visited the presidential palace in November, the United
Nations peacekeepers and the Haitian police failed to secure the adjacent
neighborhood of Bel Air, a stronghold of the pro-Aristide gangs. Daylong
skirmishes broke out after gunfire erupted. Three civilians were killed and
a dozen wounded in what has become a routine day of violence in the Haitian
capital.