30778: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-US-Drug Raids (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 20 (AP) -- President Rene Preval said Friday that
Haiti and the United States will continue joint offensives against drug
trafficking, which he described as the biggest threat to his impoverished
Caribbean country.
   Preval's comments were his first public remarks since U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration agents and Haitian authorities launched a
forceful crackdown on suspected drug traffickers in two coastal towns
earlier this week.
   The agents arrested a Haitian businessman allegedly tied to cocaine
traffickers but failed to capture their main target, former rebel leader
and presidential candidate Guy Philippe, who is believed to be in hiding.
   Preval said the operation resulted from meetings he held recently with
DEA Administrator Karen Tandy, and said more actions are planned.
   "These aren't operations we want to advertise. We're not going to say
what the next step is but there will be other steps," Preval told reporters
during a joint press conference with visiting Canadian Prime Minister
Stephen Harper.
   He called drug traffickers "the single biggest destabilizing factor
facing weak countries like Haiti," which has only a few thousand poorly
paid police and a notoriously corrupt judicial system.
   Shortly after dawn Monday, five helicopters, two airplanes and at least
a dozen DEA and Haitian agents converged on the southern town of Les Cayes
and the northwestern town of Gonaives, both known receiving points for
South American cocaine bound for the United States.
   The agents raided Philippe's two-story home in Les Cayes but found only
his wife, two children and maid. Philippe led the 2004 rebellion that
toppled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide and has denied past
accusations of drug trafficking.
   A U.S. law enforcement official said authorities were surprised they
didn't find Philippe and had already prepared a press release announcing
his capture. The official requested anonymity because the operation is
ongoing.
   Preval said other suspects have already been extradited to the United
States.
   Preval did not name the extradited suspects, but Haitian media have
identified them as Lavaud Francois, a Gonaives-based businessman arrested
in the DEA raid; Bernard Piquion, who was arrested in May with several
Haitian policemen as they allegedly transported cocaine; and Raynald Saint
Pierre, a former lieutenant in Haiti's disbanded armed forces.
   The U.S. investigation is led by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Miami and
the DEA.