27454: (news) Chamberlain: Restore peace to slum, Haiti front-runner says (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Carlos Valdez

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Haitian presidential
front-runner Rene Preval said on Friday he does not believe in a military
solution to rampant violence in Cite Soleil, the gang-infested slum that
was a stronghold of deposed president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     Preval's position differed sharply with Haiti's wealthy elite and with
plans drawn up by U.N. peacekeepers to move forcefully to quell shootings,
kidnappings and other crime in the teeming seaside shantytown.
     "We have to restore peace to Cite Soleil but I don't think it should
be a military solution," Preval said in a wide-ranging interview with
Reuters television.
     Haitian business and civic leaders have complained bitterly that the
9,000-member U.N. peacekeeping force sent to secure the Caribbean nation
after Aristide was pushed from power by a bloody rebellion in February 2004
has failed to rein in armed gangs.
     Peacekeepers and gunmen exchange fire almost daily in the slum, which
is home to between 300,000 and 600,000 people. Dozens of bystanders have
been caught in the cross-fire.
     Juan Gabriel Valdes, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, said in January
the U.N. force, known by the acronym MINUSTAH, was ready to move against
the gangs and even suggested there could be "collateral damage" in the
fighting. The operation failed to materialize.
     Preval said the remedy for Cite Soleil's ills should involve police
and include an examination of its social and economic problems.
     "If it were a military solution, MINUSTAH would have already found it
because they have military deployed there," he said.
     Preval, an agronomist who served as president from 1996-2001 between
Aristide's two terms, was the only leader in the 202-year history of the
world's first black republic to serve an entire term and hand over power to
a successor peacefully. Pre-election polls have him leading comfortably
over businessman Charles Baker in Tuesday's election.
     He was Aristide's protege and hand-picked successor and was widely
viewed as simply holding the presidency for the return of Aristide, who was
barred from serving consecutive terms.
     Dressed in a white guayabera and seated on a chair in the yard of a
relative's home in Port-au-Prince, the bearded Preval told Reuters he would
try to reinforce Haiti's police force and feeble justice system and achieve
the dream of primary education for everyone.
     "Disarm the children and put a book in their hands," he said.
     Preval was guarded on two of the hot-button issues in Haitian politics
-- the restoration of the army, accused of human rights abuses in the past
and disbanded by Aristide in the 1995s, and the return of Aristide to Haiti
from his exile in South Africa.
     On the army, he joked: "Who are we going to attack? Who are we going
to wage war against? The Dominicans? No, we're not going to do that."
     He suggested what Haitians want is a strong national police force to
maintain security and help in natural disasters, and said U.N. peacekeepers
should stay in Haiti to help strengthen the police.
     Of Aristide's possible return, Preval said: "The constitution says no
Haitian who left Haiti needs a visa to come back. It will be up to
President Aristide to decide if he wants to come back."