25340: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Violence (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By REED LINDSAY

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, June 5 (AP) -- A human rights group demanded an inquiry
Sunday into reports that police killed at least four people and burned 12
homes during raids against gang members in a slum filled with supporters of
ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   "We deplore these actions and demand they be investigated," said Jean
Yves Altemar, member of a group that documents rights abuses in
Port-au-Prince slums.
   The group accused U.N. peacekeepers of doing nothing to stop police from
setting fire to cinderblocks shacks and opening fire on civilians in
Saturday's raids. "They were present during this operation," said Altemar,
of Collective Reflection for the Defense of Human Rights.
   Brazilian troops provided back-up and secured perimeters, while Chinese
and Jordanian police worked "more closely" with the Haitian police, said
David Beer, a Canadian who heads the U.N. civilian police force in Haiti.
U.N. officials were investigating the allegations, Beer said, declining to
comment further.
   Jean-Francois Vezina, a U.N. civilian police spokesman, said Haitian
police killed two people and arrested 35 others, but had no other details.
He said peacekeepers fired no shots during the operation.
   A pair of flip-flops lay in a pool of blood in an alleyway. Neighbors
said they saw police kill three people and take the bodies away in
ambulances. Several blocks away, a vendor pointed to blood that had been
covered with sand, saying police shot a man there. Merite Merilien, the
city morgue director, refused to say how many bodies were brought in
Saturday.
   An AP reporter saw at least six scorched cinderblock homes in the Bel
Air neighborhood. Altemar said police burned at least 12 homes.
   The 7,400-member U.N. peacekeeping force has come under pressure -- most
recently from U.S. Ambassador James Foley -- to be more aggressive in
helping police combat armed gangs loyal to Aristide, who was toppled in a
February 2004 armed uprising. But Aristide sympathizers accuse peacekeepers
of turning a blind eye to police atrocities against them.