30069: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-UN-Gang Arrests (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 21 (AP) -- U.N. peacekeepers seized a house
belonging to one of Haiti's most wanted gang leaders but failed to catch
him during a raid that also led to the arrest of 17 suspected gang members,
officials said Wednesday.
   Blue-helmeted troops stormed the vanilla-colored, two-story house of
Amaral Duclona on Tuesday in the Port-au-Prince slum of Cite Soleil, but
the gang leader escaped before troops could catch him, said Col. Alphonso
Henrique Pedrosa, a Brazilian military spokesman.
   Duclona, suspected in a wave of kidnappings, is the second gang leader
this month to flee from the 8,800-strong U.N. force, which arrived in 2004
after a violent uprising toppled former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   The raid was part of a new U.N. offensive to drive gangs out of the
Caribbean nation's slums. Earlier this month, U.N. troops stormed Cite
Soleil and chased out another gang leader known as Evens, who is also in
hiding.
   About 200 slum dwellers staged a protest outside Duclona's house calling
for the withdrawal of U.N. peacekeepers. Many said Duclona provided them
with food and security and were worried how they would survive without him.
   "If Amaral isn't here, who will replace him?" the protesters chanted as
they marched past Brazilian U.N. troops.
   U.N. troops handed out rice and water to children on Wednesday, and
Pedrosa said soldiers would remain in the area.