27450: (news) Chamberlain: Security fears grow as Haiti election nears (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 3 (Reuters) - Haiti closed its schools on
Friday and the presidential front-runner canceled a campaign rally amid
heightened security concerns ahead of the chaotic nation's election on
Tuesday.
     A campaign official for former President Rene Preval, who leads
opinion polls, said threats forced Preval to call off a campaign-ending
event in the capital on Saturday as the poorest country in the Americas
edges uneasily toward its first election since Jean-Bertrand Aristide was
ousted by a bloody rebellion two years ago.
     "We have decided to cancel the rally to close the campaign because we
have credible information that there are people who plan to attack our
supporters and make bloodshed," said the official, Rene Momplaisir.
     A 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force sent after Aristide's ouster
patrols Haiti's streets to provide security. But the foreign troops come
under fire almost daily in Cite Soleil, a teeming slum in the capital
Port-au-Prince where election officials decided not to set up voting
centers because of the danger.
     In recent days U.N. officials have told 3.5 million voters they will
be protected at polling stations. President Boniface Alexandre was to urge
a violence-free election in a nationally televised address later on Friday.
     The humanitarian group Oxfam warned on Friday that many Haitians were
afraid to vote because of the political and gang violence that has gripped
the nation of 8.5 million people. Hundreds have been killed since Aristide
fled on Feb. 29, 2004, and nearly 2,000 people have been kidnapped for
ransom in the last year.
     "People feel completely abandoned. They don't have confidence that
someone is there to protect them when they vote," said Yolette Etienne, an
Oxfam official in Port-au-Prince.
     Schools were set to remain closed for a week and public administration
buildings will be locked from Monday to Wednesday. Campaigning was to end
on Sunday.
     Preval, an agronomist who served as president from 1996 to 2001, has
done little public campaigning. A one-time protege of Aristide, he has
distanced himself from the exiled former priest who was accused of
despotism and corruption during his second term in office.
     But Preval, who held a comfortable poll lead over industrialist
Charles Baker, appears to have won support from many of Aristide's Lavalas
Family loyalists from the slums, and is opposed by Haiti's business elite
who pressed for Aristide's ouster two years ago.
     "They want to start violence to prevent Preval from being elected but
we are not going to play their game," Momplaisir said.
     Oxfam said an estimated 210,000 guns now in circulation in Haiti and
the long distances many voters will have to travel to the 800 voting
centers across the country were likely to discourage people from casting
ballots.
     "Many residents of Port-au-Prince have told us they are too scared to
make the journey to vote on Tuesday," Etienne said. "Most of the
professionals I talk to say they will not go to vote."
     Despite the concerns, the crowded capital, awash in colorful campaign
signs and graffiti, has been relatively quiet in recent days, with no
high-profile kidnappings.
     Rights group Amnesty International called on Friday for "all parties"
in Haiti's electoral process to respect and promote the rule of law.
     "The upcoming presidential elections can result in a new era for Haiti
or sink the country into further poverty and violence," Amnesty official
Susan Lee said.

  (Additional reporting by Joseph Guyler Delva)




 REUTERS