24543: (news) Chamberlain: UN-Haiti (longer story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By NICK WADHAMS

   UNITED NATIONS, March 22 (AP) -- Haitian gangs should accept a U.N.
offer to disarm and return to civilian life or else peacekeepers will deal
with them "with firmness," the head of the U.N. peacekeeping mission in the
Caribbean nation said Tuesday.
   Juan Gabriel Valdes said the mission, known as MINUSTAH, was stepping up
action to ensure that militias and gangs do not disrupt elections set for
October and November. On Sunday, two U.N. soldiers were killed in Haiti,
one of them as peacekeepers raided a police station occupied by gunmen.
   While many former soldiers had agreed to disarm, the big problem was
militias affiliated with them or armed gangs in shantytowns, Valdes said.
The United Nations is giving those groups the chance to turn over their
weapons and return to civilian life.
   "If these offers are not received, if it is not possible to continue to
follow a peaceful rendering of these weapons and the disarmament of these
groups, we will follow the same line of firmness that we have followed in
the last week vis-a-vis the former military," Valdes said.
   He said there would be no deadline for the armed groups but that the
peacekeepers would plan carefully to protect civilians -- particularly in
the Port-au-Prince slum of Bel Air and the shantytown of Cite Soleil
outside the capital.
   "What we cannot accept is the level of control that these gangs have
over these people and we are preparing action against them," Valdes said.
   A U.S.-led peacekeeping force was deployed to Haiti after President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile in February 2004. This force
was replaced by U.N. peacekeepers in June. Despite their presence, armed
rebels and former soldiers still control much of the countryside.
   Aristide disbanded the army in 1995, four years after he was ousted.
   For months, the peacekeepers have been criticized for being too passive
toward armed groups, including ex-soldiers and street gangs. The groups are
blamed for more than 400 killings since September and some fear they could
disrupt fall elections.
   Valdes, Chile's former U.N. ambassador, said the mission had stayed in
the background while the transitional government tried to persuade armed
groups to end the violence. But the gangs have continued to resist, and now
peacekeepers have begun to take action.
   There are four or five more police stations around Haiti in the hands of
former military forces or other gunmen, but none where large numbers of
civilians are threatened, Valdes said.
   The next step, Valdes said, is giving Haitian police "the backing and
also the means" to fight the armed gangs effectively.