28480: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Canadian Kidnapped (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MYRNA DOMIT

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, June 20 (AP) -- A Canadian missionary who runs a Haitian
orphanage has been kidnapped from his residence near the Caribbean nation's
capital, officials said Tuesday.
   Ed Hughes, 62, was kidnapped late Monday in Cabaret, a rural town just
north of Port-au-Prince where he runs an orphanage, said Michael Lucius,
chief of the Haitian Judiciary Police. Radio Metropole reported Hughes
disappeared Sunday. Officials could not immediately explain the
discrepancy.
   Police freed a kidnapped Haitian and arrested four people during a raid
in the same town Tuesday but Lucius said it was unknown whether the
suspects had any connection to Hughes' abduction.
   U.N. spokeswoman Marie-Evelyn Petrus-Barry said the organization was
working with Haitian police to find Hughes and "liberate him as soon as
possible."
   A rise in kidnappings and killings in recent weeks has raised fears of a
flare-up of violence similar to the mayhem following a 2004 revolt that
toppled recently installed President Rene Preval's predecessor,
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   Authorities said Tuesday that well-armed gangs have killed 10 police
officers since May in a surge of violence aimed at intimidating the
impoverished country's ill-equipped security forces.
   "My impression is that gangs are starting a campaign to intimidate both
Haitians and the police force," police spokesman Frantz Lerebours said.
   Haiti has only 6,000 poorly equipped police to patrol the country of 8
million people. U.N. officials say a country of that size needs at least
20,000 police.