27572: (news) Chamberlain: Slum battles hurt U.N. efforts to fix Haiti crisis (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Kieran Murray

     CITE SOLEIL, Haiti,  Feb 8 (Reuters) - In the narrow alleys of Haiti's
most notorious shantytown, one-room cinder block homes bear the ugly scars
of battle between local gang leaders and U.N. peacekeepers that many
residents see as the real enemy.
     Blazing gunfights in the last two years have killed dozens of people
in this Port-au-Prince slum and their homes have been blasted with powerful
machine guns mounted on U.N. armored personnel carriers.
     Resentment runs high and Cite Soleil, which was already a symbol of
Haiti's misery, is now the toughest nut to crack in U.N. efforts to pacify
the Caribbean nation and attack the poverty that largely defines it.
     "We need schools, we need food, but all they do is shoot at us,"
screams Marie Nicole Nazeur, a 35-year-old woman at a market just hundreds
of yards from the sandbagged building where Jordanian troops hunker down
between clashes.
     Many of Cite Soleil's powerful gangs are tied to Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, their elected president who was forced into exile by a bloody
rebellion in February 2004. Those gangs, and many residents, see that
episode as a U.S.-backed coup against their leader
     Around Nazeur, at least two dozen stall holders and local residents
shouted complaints about the U.N. forces. Some showed off back, stomach and
leg wounds suffered in the fighting. Thirteen members of the U.N. force
have also been killed in Haiti, some of those victims of firefights in Cite
Soleil.
     Despite chaos at polling stations and fears of violence, Haitians
voted in huge numbers on Tuesday in the first election since Aristide left
office.
     The peaceful vote raised hopes for democracy in Haiti but U.N.
peacekeepers still have to tame Cite Soleil's powerful gangs, and try to
win over ordinary residents.
     "Why do they attack us? We need help, not war," said Marie La Claude,
a mother of seven, pointing to where a woman was killed in the cross-fire
of a battle in the market last year.
     The U.N. has deployed about 9,000 troops and police to support the
interim government installed after Aristide was ousted and to help organize
a return to democratic rule.
     It has had some successes and may have prevented a collapse into civil
war, but hundreds of people have been killed since Aristide was chased out
and almost 2,000 more were kidnapped for ransom just in the last year.
     Although votes from Tuesday's election are being counted slowly and a
second round run-off is possible, ex-president Rene Preval is widely
expected to win. He was once Aristide's protege and Haiti's rich elite
mistrust him despite efforts to distance himself from the radical former
priest.
     With Haiti crippled by years of political violence, U.N. leaders hope
that whoever wins will cut deals with his rivals to disarm the gangs,
reform the police, build schools and hospitals in poor areas and try to
create jobs in a country where unemployment is estimated at well above 60
percent.
     "If Haiti is to have a better future, its people must learn to work
together and to reconcile in the wake of the elections," Heddi Annabi,
deputy head of U.N. peacekeeping forces, said this week.
     Haiti is regarded by many as a "failed state" and the United Nations
has struggled to persuade its members to commit their best troops and
police for its mission here.
     Washington, for long the main power broker in Haiti, has pulled away
and has a minimal presence in the U.N. force. Jordan has the biggest
contingent but its troops are widely criticized as being too trigger happy
in Cite Soleil.
     While some Aristide allies see U.N. troops as aggressors, business
leaders have angrily demanded the U.N. strike much harder at gang leaders
linked to the former president.
     U.N. troops are stuck in the middle but there is no simple escape
route and analysts say Haiti could fall back into chaos if U.N. members do
not commit to staying for years to come.
     "Even with all the problems, nobody here is saying they want them to
leave -- on the left, right, or center," said Mark Schneider of the
International Crisis Group, which recommends policies on the world's main
conflicts. "They are needed here not for one year, or two years, but for
the next 10 years."