23142: (Chamberlain) UN-Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   UNITED NATIONS, Sept 10 (AP) -- Haiti's interim government must disarm
illegal groups to extend its control throughout the country and prepare for
elections next year, the U.N. Security Council said Friday.
   Prime Minister Gerard Latortue took office March 17 as head of an
interim government replacing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who resigned
in February and fled the country. The government has pledged to hold
elections in 2005.
   Latortue's government must confront armed groups who continue to act as
unauthorized police and administrators in some Haitian cities, said a
statement by council president, Spanish Ambassador Juan Antonio
Yanez-Barnuevo.
   "The Security Council stresses the urgency of disbanding and disarming
all illegal armed groups" to extend its control and authority throughout
the country, the statement said.
   A U.N. peacekeeping force is helping the government neutralize the
illegal groups, which include former Aristide loyalists and ex-soldiers who
lost their positions when Aristide dissolved the army in 1995.
   But the U.N. mission has only about 2,700 peacekeepers in Haiti -- or 40
percent of its authorized strength of 6,700 -- and has yet to deploy
throughout the entire country to help the Haitian National Police maintain
order.
   The council also urged a wide national dialogue among all major
political movements including Aristide's Lavalas party as a prelude to
presidential and legislative elections in 2005.
   More than 70 political parties and new forces have appeared in what an
Aug. 30 report by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan called a "highly
fragmented" political landscape.