24533: (news) Chamberlain: First U.N. peacekeeper killed in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 20 (Reuters) - A U.N. soldier from Sri
Lanka and two other people were killed in a gunfight on Sunday as U.N
troops and Haitian police evicted rebel former soldiers from a police
station they occupied for months.
     The Sri Lankan soldier was the first U.N. peacekeeper killed by
violence since the international forces were sent in June to help stabilize
Haiti after a revolt drove President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile last
year.
     Police and U.N. troops moved in before dawn to drive the rebel former
soldiers out of the police station they used as a base in the southern town
of Petit-Goave, said the police director for the region, Renan Etienne.
     "During the exchange of fire, one U.N. soldier from Sri Lanka and two
among the police station occupiers were killed," Etienne told Reuters.
     Eleven people wounded in the gunfight were taken to a hospital,
including three Sri Lankan soldiers.
     A spokesman for the U.N. civilian police, Jean-Francois Vezina, said
police and U.N. troops had retaken control of the police station that the
rebel former soldiers had renamed the "army headquarters." U.N. troops
detained 25 former soldiers and seized 13 weapons, he said.
     Members of Haiti's defunct army, who helped lead the rebellion against
Aristide, control several parts of the country, particularly in the Central
Plateau where their self-proclaimed leader, Remissainthe Ravix, and many of
his men have taken refuge.
     Police put Ravix on their most-wanted list for his alleged role in the
killing of four police officers in February.
     Aristide disbanded Haiti's coup-prone army in 1995 during his first
term as president. He was re-elected in 2001 for a five-year term but fled
the country on Feb. 29, 2004, in the face of a month-long armed revolt and
under U.S. and French pressure to quit. He is exiled in South-Africa.
     Former soldiers demanded the reinstatement of the military and have
clashed with Haiti's interim government over its refusal. Interim Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue said the decision on whether to reestablish the
army should be made by the new government chosen in elections scheduled for
November.
     The U.N. special envoy to Haiti, Juan Gabriel Valdes, repeatedly
called on illegally armed groups to disarm or face the use of force. He is
the civilian chief of the 7,400-strong U.N. peacekeeping force.