Disarming Haitian gangs a tough task for UN peacekeepers

[seemslikeadream]

HAITI-UN... Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers perform a ceremony honouring two-killed Sri Lankan colleagues at the UN hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday. (Photo: AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - They hide arsenals of weapons in coffins, show a fierce devotion to their cause and can melt into the population at the first crack of a rifle.

After months of inaction, United Nation officials have vowed to confront violent Haitian gangs that refuse to disarm, but some say success for a relatively small peacekeeping force, unaccustomed to gritty urban fighting, won't be easy against an array of diffuse and heavily-armed groups based in Haiti's vast slums.

The UN peacekeepers in recent days suffered their first two deaths in an offensive against former members of Haiti's disbanded army, and experts say going after the politically-oriented, better-armed street gangs will be more difficult.

The stakes are high: UN and interim Haitian officials fear continued violence could disrupt fall elections needed to fill a power vacuum left after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster last year.

More than 400 people have died in clashes since September.

more
http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/html/20050329T210000-0500_77730_OBS_DISARMING_HAITIAN_GANGS_A_TOUGH_TASK_FOR_UN_PEACEKEEPERS.asp

[htuttle]

1. I bet this would have been easier...

..if the US government hadn't supplied all those gangs with M-16's...


http://www.africaspeaks.com/haiti2004/1906.html

Earlier this year, Haiti fell victim to a third coup in 14 years (yes, Big Dawg's occupation of 1994 was a sacking of state, economically if nothing else). Boot licking scoundrels under the leadership of convicted war criminal Guy Phillipe, outdid the vacillation of Haitian Mulattoes and loyalists Rigaud and Beauvais, stepping to a "march of death," illegitimately asserting CIA backed authority on a sovereign government; the drummer boy pounding the calfskin with the clip of a Yank M-16. Reports have now circulated as to the reunion of this death squad in the DR during the months leading to their spineless coup. Rumor tells of a recent weapons shipment from the U$ to the DR, this including approximately 20,000 M-16's, as part of some Neo-Con "Democracy Upkeep Initiative," or something along these lines. Perhaps the brilliant think-tanks who orchestrated this exhibition of Democratic support are adhering to the lessons of Roosevelt and McCarthy masterfully administered in the Philippines?

Haiti's Lawyer: U.S. Is Arming Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/02/25/1613200&mode=thread&tid=25

"These people came through the Dominican border after the United States had provided 20,000 M-16's to the Dominican army," says Kurzban. "I believe that the United States clearly knew about it before, and that given the fact of the history of these people, probably very, very deeply involved, and I think Congress needs to seriously look at what the involvement of the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency has been in this operation. Because it is a military operation. It's not a rag-tag group of liberators, as has often been put in the press in the last week or two."

Kurzban says he has hired military analysts to review photos of the weapons being used by the paramilitary groups. He says that contrary to reports in the media that the armed groups are using weapons originally distributed by Aristide, the gangs are using highly sophisticated and powerful weapons; weapons that far out-gun Aristide's 3,000 member National Police force.

"I don't think that there's any question about the fact that the weapons that they have did not come from Haiti," says Kurzban. "They're organized as a military commando strike force that's going from city to city."

Kurzban says that among the weapons being used by the paramilitaries are: M-16's, M-60's, armor piercing weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers. "They have weapons to shoot down the one helicopter that the government has," he said. "They have acted as a pretty tight-knit commando unit."

Good thing it's mostly non-US UN troops bearing the brunt of this decision, eh?