28955: (news) Chamberlain: Haitian gang leaders shelve disarmament plan (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Gang leaders in Haiti's
largest slum said on Monday they were putting disarmament plans on hold due
to raids by U.N. peacekeepers on the notoriously violent streets they
control.
     "U.N. troops don't want peace and disarmament because they want a
justification for their presence here," said Amaral Duclona, one of the
gang leaders in Cite Soleil, a teeming warren of cement block homes and
shanties on the outskirts of the capital.
     Duclona, acting as a spokesman for all the gangs in Cite Soleil, said
there were no plans for a rescheduling of Monday's public ceremony, during
which he and other gang leaders were to carry out a pledge made last week
to lay down their arms.
     U.N. officials were not immediately available for comment.
     President Rene Preval and Prime Minister Edouard Alexis have demanded
that all armed gangs surrender their weapons or risk being killed. But
Duclona said U.N. peacekeepers had become an obstacle to peace in the
chaotic Caribbean nation.
     "How can we hand over our weapons while U.N. troops continue to
conduct heavy attacks against us?" he asked.
     The gangs in Cite Soleil, which is home to thousands of supporters of
former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, were mostly responsible for
violence aimed at destabilizing the U.S.-backed interim government
installed after Aristide was ousted from power in February 2004.
     The United Nations 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 level of violence dropped sharply after Preval, a former Aristide
protege, won election in February. But kidnappings and political bloodshed
have spiked again since last month.