27497: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti crippled by crime, fear ahead of election (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Kieran Murray

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 6 (Reuters) - First, one of Robert
Labrousse's friends was shot dead and two of his employees were kidnapped
as they left his factory. Then the slum gang moved in and stripped the
business clean.
     A truck smashed through the fence at his bleach and detergents factory
near the Haitian capital's sprawling shantytown of Cite Soleil, and the
looters quickly hauled away office equipment and 4,000-gallon
(15,000-litre) tanks full of chemicals.
     What they couldn't steal, they destroyed. Labrousse puts his losses at
around $1 million and says his more than 50 employees are now without jobs.
     The attack late last month was part of a ferocious crime wave that has
added to the misery of this nation, the poorest in the Americas, as it
prepares for an election on Tuesday.
     "Every year, people say it cannot get any worse, that we've reached
rock bottom. And every day it gets worse," said Labrousse, a mild mannered
and politically moderate 64-year-old. "No one gets arrested for anything.
They live in impunity."
     Almost 2,000 people have been kidnapped for ransom over the past year
and hundreds killed since Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former firebrand
priest, was ousted as president and forced into exile by a violent
rebellion two years ago.
     In a country crippled by a vast divide between rich and poor, the
collapse of law is a major issue in the presidential election that is aimed
at reviving democracy.
     Haiti's business elite, many of whom became rich during the Duvalier
family dictatorship, blame Aristide. They accuse him of arming his slum
supporters and teaching them class hatred.
     "This is the fruit of what he preached. His philosophy got into the
heads of the poor," said Labrousse, looking down over Port-au-Prince from a
balcony up in the hills where the wealthy live behind high walls.
     Down in Cite Soleil, gang leaders loyal to Aristide wield substantial
political power and ransoms from kidnappings are one of the few sources of
income. The poor also harbor deep mistrust toward the rich.
     "If I kidnap one of those people who are killing us, who are
responsible for our misery, I don't think it's a crime because when they
kill us, they don't consider it a crime," said Alexandre Michel, a local
gang member.
     Aristide remains a hero in Cite Soleil and most people hope the
election will allow him to return again. Anger runs high, directed at U.N.
peacekeepers who regularly fight local gangs in running street battles, and
at the rich.
     "The bourgeoisie live up there, in their big houses. They don't care
about us," said Marie Jean Baptiste, a 26-year-old mother of two. "Aristide
gave us work and food, but the rich don't want to share."
     Business leaders and some prominent presidential candidates want U.N.
troops to force their way into Cite Soleil and arrest the slum lords, but
front-runner Rene Preval, a former president and Aristide protege, insists
it will not work.
     He says peace can only be restored with a mix of policing and social
programs, building schools and providing jobs.
     "That is also part of security -- disarming the children and putting a
book in their hands," said Preval, who has tried to distance himself from
Aristide in recent years and is promising to work with business leaders if
elected.
     Many fear more violence after the election, sealing Haiti's reputation
as a failed nation unable to forge stable democracy after Jean-Claude "Baby
Doc" Duvalier was toppled in 1986.
     Labrousse said things are so bad, even the Duvalier era of repressive
rule looks good in comparison.
     "If people are allowed to do whatever they want, this country will go
down the drain."

  (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva)