27110: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti blames kidnappings on Colombians, politics (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Jan 6 (Reuters) - Haiti's police chief blames
Colombian drug dealers and political groups for a wave of pre-election
kidnappings that has turned the Haitian capital into one of the region's
most lawless cities.
     Police chief Mario Andresol said the violence was aimed at
destabilizing the government as the troubled Caribbean country struggles to
hold its first election since former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was
ousted in an armed revolt in February 2004.
     Haiti's presidential election, originally scheduled for November, has
been postponed several times because of  disorganization, logistical
problems and general instability. It is now likely to take place in
February.
     "It is clear that the increase in violence and kidnappings is in part
politically motivated," Andresol told Reuters in an interview on Thursday.
He promised to arrest the masterminds but did not identify any suspects.
     At the same time, he said Colombian drug traffickers had taken refuge
in Cite Soleil, Haiti's largest and most dangerous slum and the place where
most kidnapping victims appear to be taken and held until their relatives
pay out money.
     Police sources and business leaders estimate at least 1,900 people
were held for ransom between March and December -- snatched from the
streets and held in Port-au-Prince slums under the nose of a 9,000-member
U.N. peacekeeping force.
     "Since it has become more difficult to conduct their drug activities,
Colombian traffickers have turned to the kidnapping activity in Cite Soleil
where they took refuge," Andresol said, accusing the Colombians of running
the shacks where kidnapping victims are held.
     The Haitian police do not give out any official statistics on the
number of kidnappings. But a police inspector-general said on condition he
not be identified that around 1,900 people had been held for ransom in the
last 10 months.
     The police official said dozens of officers from Haiti's notoriously
corrupt police force were involved.
     The president of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce, Reginald Boulos, said
about 400 people, including several businessmen, were kidnapped in December
alone.
     The business community planned a general strike on Monday to protest
the lack of public security and to denounce what it views as inaction by
the Brazilian-led U.N. force and the U.N. mission head, Juan Gabriel
Valdes.
     "Mr. Valdes and the U.N. force delight in doing nothing to solve the
problem," Boulos said.
     A U.N. spokesman in Port-au-Prince, David Wimhurst, rejected the
charges and said U.N. troops were increasing the number of checkpoints in
the city to try to restore security.
     "These accusations are not justified," Wimhurst said.
     Officials of the interim government that was appointed after Aristide
fled into exile have long urged the U.N. force to be more muscular in going
after street gangs and gunmen.
     Police chief Andresol said his force, which now numbers 6,000 police,
did not have the weapons, training or expertise needed to go after gangs in
no-go zones like Cite Soleil.
     "You cannot ask the police to intervene in situations which require
military action," he said. "They could be massacred."




 REUTERS