27852: (news) Chamberlain: Joy greets Preval victory in violent Haiti slum (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 16 (Reuters) - U.N. peacekeepers shed their
combat helmets and a gang leader talked peace in a burst of revelry in
Haiti's violent Cite Soleil slum following Rene Preval's victory in the
presidential election.
     With poor residents caught in the cross-fire, the sprawling seaside
warren of flimsy shacks, open sewers and barefoot children has been the
flash point for months with armed gangs loyal to Preval and deposed
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on one side and Haitian police and U.N.
troops on the other.
     But on Thursday it was a scene of spontaneous celebration after
election officials, pressured by foreign diplomats, settled the
impoverished Caribbean nation's disputed Feb. 7 vote and named Preval, a
one-time Aristide ally and champion of the poor, the winner.
     Jordanian U.N. troops, usually holed up in a sandbag-fortified
headquarters or hidden away in menacing armored personnel-carriers on
patrol in the streets, took off their helmets and let themselves be seen in
what a commander said was a reaction to "conditions in the streets."
     Preval supporters poured into those streets in the dark -- the
agreement was announced in the middle of the night -- in a cacophony of
honking car horns and beating drums.
     "This gives us hope again," said Dorcely Jean-Claude, 39, celebrating
near the U.N. base. "Now there is no more violence."
     In the upscale suburb of Peguy-Ville, several hundred revelers marched
past the home of Preval's sister, where the president-elect was sleeping,
chanting "Preval is president, Preval is president!" and dancing to a rara
beat.
     They carried two six-foot (two-metre) snakes, powerful symbols in the
voodoo religion practiced by about half of Haiti's 8.5 million people.
     "God sent Preval for us," one man shouted.
     "Tell U.N. they can leave now, we have our president," a woman said.
     Cite Soleil, home to between 300,000 and 600,000 of Haiti's poor, had
been under siege as the turbulent capital was hit by a wave of kidnappings
and crime in the run-up to the election.
     Gangs loyal to Aristide, accused of despotism and pushed from office
two years ago, said U.N. troops and Haitian police were killing women,
children and old people in the slum while the interim authorities accused
the gangs of trying to destabilize the country.
     The violence dropped sharply a week before the election when the gangs
called a cease-fire to allow voting to take place safely.
     Amaral Duclona, a leader of the well-armed gangs and one of Haiti's
most wanted men, said on Thursday that Preval's election would probably end
the violence.
     "We want peace and we are not taking up weapons against anybody in
Cite Soleil," said Duclona, who roared through the slum on a motorcycle
without his usual complement of bodyguards and did not appear to be
carrying a weapon.
     "We'll open the doors of Cite Soleil to anyone who wants to help Cite
Soleil out of its misery," he told Reuters. "We are going to work with the
government to save Cite Soleil."
     But when asked whether the gangs would lay down their arms, Duclona
was more cautious than a fellow gang leader, Augudson Nicolas, who said
last week that the gangs would hand over their weapons to Preval in a
ceremony at the National Palace.
     "The disarmament program should be done throughout the country, not
only within Cite Soleil," Duclona said, a reference to the former soldiers
and gangs who opposed Aristide and still hold sway in parts of Haiti.

  (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva)