24529: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-General Strike (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, March 19 (AP) -- Haiti's usually bustling capital came
to a halt Saturday as many shops and businesses closed for a one-day
general strike to protest the interim government's failure to counter a
surge in violence that has claimed hundreds of lives in recent months.
   Streets normally choked with traffic were desolate as banks,
supermarkets, gas stations and retail stores shuttered in observance of the
strike called by Haiti's Chamber of Commerce. Several street stalls and car
repair shops in downtown Port-au-Prince, however, stayed open.
   The group, Haiti's largest private sector body, is calling for tougher
tactics against crime and gun violence that has engulfed Port-au-Prince
since ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled the country amid an
uprising last year.
   The strike comes as the U.S.-backed interim government tries to convince
disillusioned citizens and a skeptical international community that Haiti
is stable enough for general elections in October and November.
   Armed ex-soldiers who helped overthrow Aristide in February 2004 still
control much of the countryside, while pro- and anti-Aristide militants
wage gunbattles in the gritty slums of the capital.
   More than 400 people -- including 34 police officers -- have died since
September in clashes between police, former military and pro-Aristide
militants and common criminals.
   "How are people going to vote with people running around with guns?"
said Robert-Jean Argant, vice president of the Chamber of Commerce.
"Everybody is asking who will be the next victim. People are being
slaughtered left and right and nothing is really being done."
   Argant said all 300 members of his group and many other businesses
joined the strike, called three days after robbers gunned down a shopkeeper
in a Port-au-Prince suburb.
   Haiti's economy shrank by about 4 percent last year, battered by fallout
from the rebellion and devastating floods in May and September, according
to the International Monetary fund.
   Many small business owners said Saturday they could not afford to close.
   "I've got two kids to put through school and a family to feed," said
Mark Evans, 42, while working on several cars at his auto repair shop.
   Interim officials say they are doing the best they can with limited
funds and only a few thousand police in the Western Hemisphere's poorest
country, where billboards advertise private security firms and
bulletproofing for car windows.
   "We have only 3,000 police for a country of 8 million, and experts say
we need a force of at least 40,000," Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue
said Friday at an aid conference in Cayenne, French Guiana, where donors
approved $1 billion worth of infrastructure projects for Haiti.
   Latortue said Haiti needed to train at least another 2,000 police
officers before elections. Many police were killed or abandoned their posts
during the rebellion that ousted Aristide.
   Interim Justice Minister Bernard Gousse refused to comment Saturday,
while other officials were still returning from the conference and could
not be reached.
   The 7,400-strong U.N. peacekeeping force has also come under criticism
for failing to curb violence. U.N. officials, meanwhile, have complained
that alleged police abuse has undermined efforts to bring security to
slums.
   The Brazil-led force has been planning an effort to disarm militants,
but U.N. Envoy Juan Gabriel Valdez has acknowledged rampant violence could
make people reluctant to give up their guns.
   "We see the U.N. driving around in their armored vehicles but a lot of
us wonder if it's just for show," Argant said.