27436: (news) Chamberlain: Peacekeepers can protect Haiti voters -UN general (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 2 (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers are ready to
secure Haiti's oft-delayed election with a rapid-strike force to put down
any violence at polling stations, their commander said on Thursday.
     More than 100 election observers from the European Union and elsewhere
arrived in the troubled Caribbean nation to monitor the Feb. 7 vote, put
off from November because of political and gang violence and problems
setting up polling stations and registering millions of voters.
     Brazilian Lt. Gen. Jose Elito Carvalho Siqueira, commander of the U.N.
peacekeeping force sent to Haiti shortly after former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide was deposed two years ago, said his security plan
will "foil or prevent any plans by ill-intentioned groups who want to
disrupt the process."
     "All measures have been set up to ensure security before the
elections, during the elections and after the elections," he said at his
first news conference since taking over the 9,000-strong force after his
predecessor, Lt. Gen. Urano Bacellar, also from Brazil, committed suicide
last month.
     Security at more than 800 voting centers across the impoverished
nation has been a primary concern leading up to Tuesday's vote. Hundreds of
Haitians have been killed in political and gang violence since Aristide was
deposed on Feb. 29, 2004, and nearly 2,000 people have been kidnapped for
ransom in the last year.
     Many Haitians remember an election-day massacre at a school in the
capital, Port-au-Prince, in 1987 which forced the cancellation of one of
Haiti's early attempts at democracy following the ouster of then-president
for life Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier.
     "We have rapid-deployment forces that can reach in five or 10 minutes
any voting center anywhere there might be a problem," Elito said.
     Thirty-four election observers from the European Union and about 130
U.N. monitors arrived in Port-au-Prince on Thursday to watch an election
that has been steeped in controversy over security, the location of voting
stations and access of the poor to the polls.
     "We are going to follow all of the election events from the voting to
the declaration of results ... up to the end of the process," said Lucia
Scotton, a spokeswoman for the EU Election Observer Mission.
     Accusations of plans to disrupt the election come from across the
scrambled political spectrum. Haiti's wealthy elite allege trouble could
come from pro-Aristide slum gangs, while slum leaders suggest the
"bourgeoisie" could disrupt the vote to prevent front-runner Rene Preval,
an Aristide protege, from winning.
     Election officials said 3.1 million of 3.5 million registered voters
have received the identification cards they need to vote.
     "I believe we can expect a significant turnout," said Jacques Bernard,
director-general of the elections council that organized the vote.