27105: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Security (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

   By BEN FOX

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 5 (AP) -- The leader of Haiti's largest business
association on Thursday called for a general strike next week to protest
the wave of kidnappings that has sparked fear in the capital and
contributed to the chaos that prompted authorities to postpone elections.
   Reginald Boulos, the president of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce and
Industry, urged businesses to stay closed and parents to keep their
children out of school Monday to pressure the United Nations peacekeeping
mission to take more aggressive measures against the gangs allegedly behind
the kidnappings.
   "We believe the political management of the U.N. has not decided yet to
provide the security environment that they were meant to provide," Boulos
said at a news conference.
   "The general population is tired, very tired of this insecurity," he
said. "Elections cannot take place in this kind of environment."
   Most Haitian businesses are small, independent shops and it was unclear
what, if any, effect the chamber president's call for a general strike
would have on the economy of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
   Boulos, a leading member of a coalition that supported the rebels in the
February 2004 overthrow of President Jean Bertrand Aristide, has personal
experience with kidnapping: His wife, Mouna, was abducted and held for nine
days in November 2003.
   Haitian police and an 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force have pledged
to restore security, which has deteriorated sharply with the approach of
elections to replace the interim government imposed after Aristide's
ouster.
   Haitian interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue said Thursday that he
plans to step down as planned next month even though the repeated delays in
national elections have made it unlikely that the country's new leader will
be in place before his final day.
   Haiti has an interim president, Boniface Alexandre. After general
elections, a new president will be chosen.