29986: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-Gang Siege (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 10 (AP) -- On the dusty streets of Haiti's largest
slum, young men in baggy clothes lounge outside bullet-pocked shacks,
listening for the rumble of armored vehicles carrying U.N. peacekeepers.
   In the seaside slum of Cite Soleil, those are the sounds that precede
gunbattles and bloodshed, sending the youths and everyone else scurrying
for cover.
   Frustrated by unrelenting kidnappings for ransom, killings and other
crime, the United Nations is taking on the powerful gangs that have
flourished in the chaos following the ouster of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.
   The raids have the blessing of current President Rene Preval, who
angrily warned gangs to "disarm or die" last year.
   Most U.N. peacekeeping forces usually deploy only after the guns have
fallen silent, but the Haiti mission goes on the offensive almost every
day. Sent in more than two years ago, the 9,000-strong force is now pushing
ever deeper into Cite Soleil, and holding its ground with bases and
checkpoints.
   Haiti's ruling class welcomes them, and the veto-wielding governments on
the U.N. Security Council are united in wanting to see an end to the
Caribbean country's nearly two decades of political upheaval.
   "It's a new experience in U.N. peacekeeping," said David Wimhurst, a
spokesman for the U.N. mission. "It hasn't been easy, but we're making
headway."
   The crackdown has led to the killing or capture of several alleged
gangsters. Critics say it has also taken innocent lives in Cite Soleil,
where 300,000 people scrape out a meager existence on streets lined with
ditches of raw sewage.
   In a major operation Friday, more than 700 U.N. troops stormed Cite
Soleil to seize a large swath of the slum from gang control. A firefight
lasting several hours left two soldiers injured and at least one suspected
gang member dead.
   "We're encircling them. It's like a medieval siege, just trying to put
pressure on them," Edmond Mulet, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, told
reporters at U.N. headquarters on Jan. 29.
   Mulet said the force takes fire "every day" and called gang leaders
"psychopaths" who wantonly kidnap and kill law-abiding Haitians.
   Alix Fils-Aime, a top security adviser to Preval, said the gangs win
favor in Cite Soleil in part by sharing their loot with the poor. Robert
Argant, president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce, says: "These guys are
using the money they steal from people to get others around them to support
them."
   The gang members insist they are soldiers fighting for equality in a
country where about 80 percent of people live on less than $2 a day and a
tiny elite controls the economy.
   "They call us gangsters, but everyone in this world is a gangster. When
you're hungry, you're mad. When you're thirsty, you're mad. When somebody
is against you, you have to be mad," said a gang member, who identified
himself only as "Yamoska."
   Preval, overwhelmingly elected a year ago, has sent emissaries to the
gangs to negotiate a peaceful disarmament, while at the same time deploying
the national police to Cite Soleil for the first time since Aristide's
ouster.
   The government also encourages the gangs to trade their weapons for job
training and economic aid, but that effort has only disarmed about 100 men
and recovered a small pile of rusty, antiquated guns.
   The gang members are no strangers to struggle. After Haiti's
now-disbanded army toppled Aristide in a 1991 coup, paramilitary death
squads sprayed Aristide's slum strongholds with gunfire, killing an untold
number of people. Some of today's gang members were orphaned by the
killings, which eased in 1994 when U.S. troops restored Aristide.
   Committed to maintaining support in the slums, Aristide sent the gangs
money, food and -- by many accounts -- weapons. Many gang members remain
loyal to him today and say the U.N. is allied with their enemies. Several
told The Associated Press that they want to lay down their arms but fear
being vulnerable to U.N. raids.
   The latest U.N. offensive began late last year, prompted by a string of
bold, daylight kidnappings. Many victims were schoolchildren snatched off
the street. One teenager was murdered by her captors after her family
failed to come up with a ransom. She had been shot in both eyes.
   On Dec. 22, peacekeepers stormed Cite Soleil to break up a kidnap gang.
When fighting ended five hours later, at least six people were dead and an
unknown number wounded, the U.N. said.
   The U.N. force said only gang members died, citing information from
informants. But people in Cite Soleil said at least 10 people were killed
and none were gang members. They gathered the bodies in an empty
schoolhouse and demanded justice as female relatives sobbed.
   "People have been killed, houses have been burned and lives have been
destroyed. We want an investigation," said Webster Maurice, a Cite Soleil
activist.
   U.N. officials say peacekeepers try to avoid harming bystanders.
   In most of the U.N.'s 15 peacekeeping missions around the world,
international troops are used mainly as police to maintain order in
post-conflict countries. Peacekeepers have clashed with militants in Congo
and Sierra Leone, but only in Haiti do they routinely take on armed street
gangs, the U.N.'s Wimhurst said.
   "We normally deal with rebel groups or armed factions who have leaders
and have agreed to disarm or enter into a political agreement. Here, none
of that is true. They're just a bunch of gangs who fight us," he said.
   Fifteen foreign soldiers and police have died, including several killed
in clashes with gangs.
   In most raids, blue-helmeted peacekeepers enter the slums in armored
cars and on foot to secure gang-controlled neighborhoods, arrest criminals
and recover weapons. They may fire only if attacked.
   Few in Haiti believe Cite Soleil will calm down unless its staggering
poverty is addressed.
   The United States recently announced a $20 million grant to create jobs
and provide other aid, and foreign donors are helping to improve the
ill-equipped police force. But the country still only has about 6,000
police -- an eighth of what it is thought to need.