28932: (news) Chamberlain: Haitian gangs agree to give up their weapons (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Armed gangs in Haiti's
largest slum pledged on Thursday to hand over their weapons to the
government next week, heeding President Rene Preval's call for a peaceful
disarmament.
     The move came a week after Preval and Prime Minister Jacques Edouard
Alexis demanded that the gangs surrender their weapons or risk being
killed.
     William Baptiste, a gang leader known as Ti Blan, said the gangs in
Cite Soleil, a teeming seaside slum outside the capital, would give up
their weapons at a ceremony next week.
     "We are going to hand over our weapons to the constitutional
government on Monday because we want peace," Ti Blan, a spokesman for the
gangs in Cite Soleil, told Reuters.
     "The use of those weapons only leads to violence and that's not what
the society needs," said Ti Blan.
     He urged the government to disarm all armed groups, including those
linked to Haiti's small but wealthy elite and to political foes of former
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     The gangs in Cite Soleil, which is home to thousands of Aristide
supporters, were mostly responsible for violence aimed at destabilizing the
U.S.-backed interim government installed after Aristide was ousted from
power on Feb. 29, 2004.
     The gangs said they took up arms against the interim government to
protect themselves and slum residents against repeated attacks by the
Haitian police and U.N. peacekeepers.
     Past attempts to disarm the gangs have failed or have produced only a
few weapons.
     Preval, a former Aristide protege, won elections in February and took
office in May.
     "We held those weapons to protect ourselves and our communities from
the interim government which was our enemy," Ti Blan said. "Now, since we
don't consider Preval's administration an enemy, there is no more
justification for us to keep those weapons."
     The U.N. sent its peacekeeping force -- now numbering about 8,000
soldiers and police -- to restore order shortly after Aristide was pushed
from office by an armed rebellion.
     The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday renewed the mission for another
six months.
     The gangs said they had invited media and diplomats to witness the
weapons handover to Haitian authorities and representatives of the
Demobilization, Disarmament and Reinsertion program, run by the United
Nations.
     Several other gangs are expected to make the same move in the coming
days, said a government official, who did not want to be named.