24504: (news) Chamberlain: Meager Haitian weapons handover fails to convince (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 14 (Reuters) - Amid fanfare and congratulations,
300 former Haitian soldiers handed in a mere seven, antiquated weapons over
the weekend in what government and U.N. officials described as a step
toward disarmament.
     Analysts outside the unstable Caribbean country on Monday dismissed
the significance of the weapons handover as Haiti struggles to prepare for
peaceful elections later this year to replace ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     "They are weapons that have been hidden, they've corroded, they are
viewed as being unsafe and command very little on the gun market," said
Larry Birns, director of the Washington think tank, the Council on
Hemispheric Affairs.
     "When you are trying to fill a quota or you want to give the
appearance and not necessarily the reality of making a significant
sacrifice, you turn these guns in."
     The interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue is under
pressure because of allegations of human rights abuses, and Birns said a
demonstration it was making headway in collecting illegal weapons might
deflect some heat.
     A year after Aristide fled a monthlong revolt led by former soldiers
and street gangs, Haiti remains marred by conflict.
     Latortue's U.S. and U.N.-backed administration is pitted against
shantytown gangs loyal to Aristide, while the police force is accused of
summarily executing government foes.
     Its once warm relations with the former soldiers have also soured over
their demands for the reestablishment of the army, and ex-military forces
control large swaths of the country and refuse to disarm.
     Analysts say the prospects for holdings elections free of violence
look bleak, particularly as neither the government nor a 7,000-strong
Brazilian-led U.N. force has made a serious effort to confiscate illegal
guns.
     Latortue and other government ministers on Sunday went to Cap-Haitien,
where the 300 former soldiers said they were "ready for peace."
     Led by commander Emmanuel Dieuseul, they then surrendered six assault
rifles and one Uzi submachine gun.
     "The country will always remember you," Latortue told them. He said
their "names should be written in the country's history as the first
Haitians who took up weapons against a dictatorship and who are now
re-integrating into society."
     But local residents questioned the paltry handover.
     "I used to see them carrying a number of T65, M14 (assault rifles),
9mm pistols, none of them has been surrendered," a journalist said. A
police officer who asked not to be named said the former soldiers had not
returned several high-powered weapons they stole from police during the
February 2004 revolt.

  (Additional reporting by Michael Christie in Miami)