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30050: Hermantin(News)In Haitian slum, fear recedes slowly (fwd)
From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>
Posted on Tue, Feb. 20, 2007
HAITI
In Haitian slum, fear recedes slowly
IN CITE SOLEIL -- HAITI'S LARGEST AND MOST NOTORIOUS SLUM -- GANGS HAVE
RETREATED, BUT PLENTY OF MISERY REMAINS
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com
PORT-AU-PRINCE - Schoolboys kicked a tiny red ball around in the shadow of a
bullet-riddled building in the Cité Soleil slum. Women walked to and from
market with baskets on their heads. Families packed a tiny church nearby.
But the children never strayed too far from their play area, afraid of a return
of the firefights between local gangs and United Nations peacekeepers that once
regularly ripped through the squalid area, leaving gang members and civilians
dead or wounded.
''You can't let your children out of your sight,'' said Marguerite Joseph, 32,
tightly clutching her 2-year-old daughter in fear as four black and white U.N.
armored vehicles ferrying blue-helmeted troops rumbled by her cement-block
shack.
Over the past weeks, hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers have slowly seized sections
of Cité Soleil, a densely populated slum of about 200,000 people, once
dominated by heavily armed gang members who kept kidnap victims there, extorted
local business people and allegedly raped local women.
The flags of the United Nations and Haiti now flutter from atop the crumbling
blue bullet-pocked building, once used by the gangs to snipe at U.N.
peacekeepers, and now a U.N. command post and symbol of progress in Haiti's
crackdown on the gangs that mushroomed in the wake of former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's 2004 ouster.
''We want the capital to regain its peace,'' Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard
Alexis told The Miami Herald during the U.N. forces' predawn Feb. 9 raid to
take control of the area known as Boston, about a quarter-mile from the
building.
It is quiet in Boston now, at least for the moment.
U.N. forces now control about 20 percent of Cité Soleil, and the gangs appear
to be on the run. Scores of gang members have been arrested, and three gang
leaders -- including Boston's feared former ruler, a young man known as Evans
or ''Ti-Kouto'' (Creole for Little Knife) -- have contacted Haitian
authorities, offering to turn in their guns.
Still, many problems remain in the seaside shantytown, a historic stronghold of
support for Aristide where graffiti still hail him as ''King.'' Residents live
in row after row of corroding tin-roof shacks next to mounds of garbage and
open sewers. Money and work are scarce. Misery is plentiful.
''People are hungry,'' said one of a group of young gang members in Cité Soleil
who blocked a reporter from walking deeper into the slum.
Where there were once chimeres, slang for gunmen loyal to Aristide, who doled
out government food and jobs to dirt poor residents but controlled their turf
with a brutal hand, there are now bandi -- bandits who kidnap and rob but
provide food and water in exchange for residents' silence.
The U.N. peacekeepers first went on the offensive against Cité Soleil's gangs
in December, after an unprecedented rash of child kidnappings and increasing
pressure by Haitian lawmakers on Alexis and President René Préval to improve
the security situation.
Several hundred U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian national police began to launch
raids into gang-controlled areas and eventually seized control of the Bwa Neuf
section of the slum after several firefights. Then, on Feb. 9, they seized the
Boston section in their largest raid to date.
''There are between three and five big bandits [in Port-au-Prince]. . . . Those
are the ones we really want,'' said Edmond Mulet, the overall head of the U.N.
mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH.
Some of the gang leaders are now fighting for control of the Martissant slum on
the southern outskirts of Port-au-Prince in battles that have forced many
residents to flee their homes.
Since the raid, 45 gang members from both Martissant and Cité Soleil have been
arrested by the Haitian National Police and the peacekeepers, U.N. military
spokeswoman Laurie Arellano said. But how long they will remain behind bars is
unclear because Haiti's jails already are severely overcrowded.
On Monday, U.N. officials announced the capture of Johnny Pierre Louis, a Cité
Soleil gang leader wanted in the killing of relatives of gang members who had
agreed to join a disarmament program.
Also seized during the Cité Soleil raid Feb. 9 were a Galil assault rifle,
about 6,000 rounds of ammunition, two telescopes, one binoculars, two laptop
computers and 27 cellphones. The raiders also found the national identity cards
of several kidnap victims, Arellano said.
''Now it's possible to walk in Boston without fear, without problems, without
criminals circulating freely in that area,'' Brazilian Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto
dos Santos Cruz, the U.N. military commander, said as he showed off the seized
loot.
Although Evans was not captured, Dos Santos Cruz said his forces were still
looking for him.
A Haitian official familiar with a months-old effort to disarm the gangs told
The Miami Herald that Evans and two other Cité Soleil gang leaders had offered
to disarm after the U.N. raid -- in exchange for a one-way ticket out of Haiti.
No deal, said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity
of the disarmament program.
But while a degree of normalcy has returned to Cité Soleil, some Aristide
supporters have complained that the U.N. forces used ''brutal tactics'' in
their raids.
The U.S.-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, headed by Brian
Concannon Jr., issued a statement Wednesday alleging that the raids caused
unnecessary ``collateral damage among children, young adults and elderly, men
and women killed or injured by U.N. bullets.''
Haitian news media reported four civilians dead in the Boston raid, but U.N.
officials said they could not confirm that number. Fifteen U.N. peacekeepers
have died and 40 wounded since the U.N. force was deployed to Haiti in 2004.
U.N. officials say they use caution in their offensive and try to limit
civilian casualties. Many gang members use the same caliber of bullets as the
U.N. peacekeepers, so it's almost impossible to prove which side shot a person,
they add.
During a recent walk through Cité Soleil, few residents were willing to discuss
the gangs or the kidnappings with a correspondent, choosing instead to talk
about how tough life had become since Aristide's departure.
''Given where we are currently, the fact we have not died yet, it is only
because of God,'' said Perle Estelan, 47, a husband and a father of three who
gets by doing odd jobs. ``He's the one who is protecting us, keeping us
alive.''
Some international and local organizations have tried to help in Cité Soleil. A
group of Haitian businesses, for instance, provides water through a recently
started foundation, donating about $1,000 a month. Peacekeepers also contribute
food and water in areas they have taken control of. And recently, the U.S.
government announced that it would give Haiti $20 million to help create jobs
for youths in Cité Soleil.
Mulet, the U.N. chief, and others welcome the aid, saying that more than
military muscle is needed to root out Haiti's burgeoning gang problem.
''People in Cité Soleil need to see some kind of dividends,'' Mulet said.
``They need to see the state, the government, is moving in rebuilding schools,
hospitals, providing development projects.''
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