30828: (news) Chamberlain: Haiti-UN-Peacekeepers (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, July 31 (AP) -- Three years after arriving in Haiti in
the wake of a bloody revolt that ousted the country's president, U.N.
peacekeepers have decimated violent gangs, calmed teeming slums and
provided breathing room for a fledgling elected government.
   When U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon makes his first visit here
Wednesday, he'll find a U.N. force evolving from a military to a policing
role that officials say is crucial to keeping the peace while this
impoverished Caribbean country rebuilds.
   The senior U.N. envoy to Haiti says it is too soon for the U.N. to
consider withdrawing its 8,800-strong, Brazil-led peacekeeping force,
noting past failed attempts to help the country.
   "An early withdrawal right now would be a big mistake, 'Big' with a
capital letter," Edmond Mulet said in a recent interview with The
Associated Press. "This is a time to hold on, to make this work this time."
   Ban will meet with President Rene Preval and other political leaders
during his 36-hour trip, which comes as the U.N. Security Council prepares
to renew the Haiti mandate in October. Ban is expected to ask the council
for more specialized forces such as naval units to help Haiti protect its
coastline from arms and drug traffickers.
   The peacekeepers arrived in 2004 after a revolt toppled former President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, touching off a long turf war against well-armed,
slum-based gangs blamed for a wave of killings and kidnappings.
   Today, blue-helmeted soldiers no longer get shot at or need to conduct
large-scale raids into slums in search of alleged gunmen. Neighbors simply
call and tell soldiers where gang members are.
   Mulet said the U.N. mission eventually hopes to use more civilian police
than soldiers but is hampered by a world shortage of trained,
French-speaking officers.
   The peacekeepers provide more than 80 percent of Haiti's security needs,
but the government is working to eventually take over that responsibility.
The national police academy is pumping out hundreds of recruits, trying
bolster the nation's small police force of 6,000.
   "We don't foresee a return to banditry and criminality in the country,"
said Alix Fils-Aime, one of Preval's top security advisers. "The criminals
know that the balance of power has changed."
   While the improved climate has raised hopes Haiti may finally escape a
long cycle of misery, officials say gangs, drug traffickers and chronic
poverty still pose a threat and that U.N. troops will be needed at least
until Preval's term ends in 2011.
   Haiti, a former French colony of 8 million people, is still struggling
to stand on its own after a 20th century marked by foreign occupations and
a 29-year dictatorship by the Duvalier family. Efforts to build an
effective police force are haunted by the specter of the Duvalier-era's
bullying Tonton-Macoute security forces and armed gangs that emerged later
to defend Aristide.
   "We have to be reminded all the time that this is a very fragile state.
To rebuild these institutions is going to take time," Mulet said.
   Aid groups say foreign assistance is only now reaching the poorest areas
of Port-au-Prince because red tape and logistical problems have slowed
delivery.
   "Assistance is only starting to trickle into the capital, whose communes
have still not perceived the start of a new era," the International Crisis
Group warned this month in a report.
   When peacekeepers took over providing security from U.S. Marines in June
2004, Haiti was awash in street violence after the three-week revolt that
toppled Aristide.
   Preval, a populist champion of the poor who swept to power in 2006
elections, authorized peacekeepers to take a firm hand and warned gangs "to
disarm or die" before a crackdown earlier this year that resulted in the
arrest or killings of dozens of alleged gang members.
   Mulet said that since the crackdown, most of the arrests and security
operations carried out by U.N. troops have come from tips provided by
people living in the poorest slums. But some people have resorted to
vigilante justice, including an attack last week in which people in a rural
town beat to death an accused rapist and murderer.
   "They (residents) have lost the fear of the gangs, which has created
another problem of lynching," said Mulet, who has urged church leaders to
condemn the practice.