27629: (news) Chamberlain: Gang leader offers peace in Haiti's troubled slum (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 10 (Reuters) - The gangs that control
Haiti's largest and most violent slum will give up their weapons and stop
fighting a "totalitarian" government if Rene Preval becomes president, a
top gang leader said.
     Augudson Nicolas, known as General Toutou, said the gangs would hand
over their guns to a Preval government in a public ceremony, bringing peace
to the teeming Cite Soleil slum where U.N. peacekeepers have been involved
in near-daily gunfights with heavily armed street toughs in recent months.
     Early election returns had Preval leading with 61 percent of the vote
in Tuesday's election. If the result holds, he would have the majority he
needs to avoid a March 19 runoff.
     "We are not interested in using weapons any more. The elections have
taken place. We are going to have a legitimate government," Nicolas,
considered one of the most influential leaders of the gangs, told Reuters
in an interview on Thursday in Cite Soleil, a teeming warren of shanties
thought to be home to more than 300,000 people.
     Haiti's disparate armed groups have offered to disarm but failed to
carry through in the past, but the United Nations mission in Haiti -- about
9,000 soldiers and civilian police -- welcomed Nicolas' proposal.
     "The whole issue is about getting the guns out of Cite Soleil," U.N.
spokesman David Wimhurst said. "It would be great if they moved in that
direction."
     Taming Cite Soleil, beset by gunfire and kidnappings, is seen as
essential to ending violence that has plagued Haiti since an armed revolt
ousted Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the last elected president and a hero to
many of the poor, in 2004.
     A feared explosion of bloodshed around Tuesday's presidential vote
failed to materialize. Police and U.N. officials believe the gangs called a
cease-fire to allow a peaceful vote, knowing Preval, a former Aristide
protege, had a good chance to win in the poorest country in the Americas.
     Haitian business and civic leaders have criticized U.N. peacekeepers
for failing to control the violence in the sprawling slum. Industrialist
Charles Baker, a presidential candidate in third place in early returns,
has called for the use of "overwhelming force" against the gangs.
     But Preval has said he does not believe military force is the solution
in Cite Soleil. Instead, he says his government would spend on schools and
infrastructure.
     Nicolas, 29, said the gang warfare in Cite Soleil has been a political
battle against interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue's "illegal"
U.S.-backed government, appointed when Aristide was driven into exile.
     "I was fighting a totalitarian government. Now it's over," said
Nicolas, a slightly built man with neat sideburns who wore jeans, a blue
shirt and a red cap.
     Nicolas has been accused by police of murder and other crimes,
including complicity in the slaying of journalist Jacques Roche last July.
He has denied involvement in Roche's death.
     The Cite Soleil gangs, he said, armed themselves for protection
against Haitian police who he said killed children, women and the elderly
in the slums.
     "The de facto government (of Latortue) and its allies the bourgeoisie
waged war against the poor population because they support Aristide," he
said.
     "The police and U.N. troops won't be allowed to come and shoot at us
any more. With Preval that will end," he said.





 REUTERS