25729: (news) Chamberlain: U.N. troops accused in deaths of Haiti residents (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, July 14 (Reuters) - Opposition groups and
residents of two Port-au-Prince slums say dozens of innocent people were
killed during anti-gang raids by U.N troops and Haitian police last week,
but U.N. and police officials denied the accusations.
     The Lawyers Committee for Individual Rights, a group known as CARLI
and regarded as one of the most independent rights groups operating in
Haiti, said U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian police killed unarmed residents,
including children and elders, in the slums of Bel-Air and Cite Soleil,
strongholds of supporters of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     "We have credible information that U.N. troops, accompanied by Haitian
police, killed an undetermined number of unarmed residents of Cite Soleil,
including several babies and women," Renan Hedouville, the head of CARLI,
told Reuters this week.
     An assistant to Brazilian General Augusto Heleno, commander of the
U.N. force, called the accusations unfounded.
     "We have no information about any killing of unarmed civilians, ladies
or babies by our forces," Brazilian marine Commander Alfredo Taranto said.
     "Our action was directed against the armed gangs and only against the
armed gangs," said Taranto. Haitian police officials also denied the
accusations.
     On July 6, about 400 U.N. troops with 41 armored vehicles and
helicopters, and several dozen Haitian police officers, conducted a raid in
Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest slum, to root out gunmen. The slum harbors a
number of gangs, many of them loyal to Aristide.
     "The foreign soldiers came with helicopters and their war machines and
started shooting on everything that moved. They killed 40 people who
carried no weapons," said Rene Momplaisir, a spokesman for a pro-Aristide
grass-roots movement in Cite Soleil.
     Aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) said it
treated more than two dozen people that day, including a pregnant woman who
survived surgery but lost her baby.
     "We received 27 people wounded by gunshots on July 6. Three quarters
were children and women," said Ali Besnaci, the head of the MSF mission in
Haiti. "We had not received so many wounded in one day for a long time."
     A U.N. military spokesman, Col. Elouafi Boulbars, said U.N. troops
killed five "criminals" during the operation. But after those bodies were
taken away, a Reuters TV crew filmed seven other bodies of people killed
during the operation, including those of two one-year-old baby boys and a
woman in her 60s.
     All seven were killed in a house in the Bois-Neuf area of Cite Soleil,
a territory controlled by one of Haiti's most wanted gang leaders, Emmanuel
"Dread" Wilme. He is believed to have been killed during the raid, but U.N.
and Haitian officials could not confirm his death.
     Dread Wilme's lieutenants and several hundred of his supporters last
Saturday took part in what they called a funeral ceremony for Wilme. But
they refused to allow reporters to verify whether there was a body in the
buried coffin.
     Residents said the number of people killed in that area on July 6
ranged from 25 to 40.
     "I counted 18 bodies, but a friend of mine who lives on the other side
of Bois-Neuf told me he saw seven bodies. He, too, almost got killed," said
Bernard Desrosier, 24, a resident of Cite Soleil. "It is a real massacre."
     The same day, residents in another slum, Bel-Air, blamed Haitian
police officers wearing black uniforms for the killing of 12 people.
     At least 18 other people were reported killed last Friday in similar
circumstances in the same slum. A Reuters correspondent saw several of the
bodies.
     "It is absolute necessary that the security forces neutralize
criminals, but nothing can justify the murders of innocent people as it is
occurring now in those poor areas," said Hedouville.
     U.N. peacekeepers were sent to stabilize the troubled Caribbean
country after Aristide was forced into exile in February 2004 by a bloody
rebellion and under pressure from the United States and France to quit.
     The U.N. mission, now numbering 6,207 soldiers and 1,437 civilian
police, has been criticized for failing to curb violence and disarm both
criminal gangs and former members of Haiti's disbanded army who
participated in the rebellion.
     The Haiti Action Committee, a San Francisco-based activist group,
condemned what it called a "massacre" in Cite Soleil. The group said at
least 23 people were killed.