29934: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-UN-Peacekeepers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By TRENT JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 30 (AP) -- The United Nations said Tuesday it will
send 350 more peacekeepers to Haiti in the latest effort to flush out armed
gangs from the capital's slums.
   The light infantry battalion of Nepalese soldiers began arriving this
week and will be fully deployed by early March, the U.N. mission said in a
statement.
   Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto Dos Santos Cruz, the Brazilian commander of the
9,000-strong U.N. force, said some of the Nepalese troops will be deployed
as early as this week in Cite Soleil, a gang-controlled slum on the edge of
the capital of Port-au-Prince.
   "I am determined to increase the pressure on the gangs who have been
holding the innocent people of Haiti hostage for so long," Santos Cruz said
in the statement. "We must not give the gangs time to relax."
   Peacekeepers arrived in Haiti in July 2004 to quell violence after a
bloody revolt toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti's
first democratically elected leader and a champion of the poor.
   U.N. troops in recent weeks have stepped up offensives against armed
gangs blamed for a wave of killings and kidnappings in the Caribbean
nation's capital.
   Since their arrival, peacekeepers have made several attempts to secure
the slum but have struggled to root out the gangs, which often shoot at
passing U.N. patrols and then retreat deep within the sprawling, mazelike
shantytown.
   Residents of Cite Soleil have accused the force of killing civilians
during nighttime raids in the densely populated area of flimsy wooden
shacks. The U.N. says its troops only fire when attacked on and try to
limit civilian casualties.