30050: Hermantin(News)In Haitian slum, fear recedes slowly (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, Feb. 20, 2007


HAITI
In Haitian slum, fear recedes slowly
IN CITE SOLEIL -- HAITI'S LARGEST AND MOST NOTORIOUS SLUM -- GANGS HAVE 
RETREATED, BUT PLENTY OF MISERY REMAINS
BY JACQUELINE CHARLES
jcharles@MiamiHerald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Schoolboys kicked a tiny red ball around in the shadow of a 
bullet-riddled building in the Cité Soleil slum. Women walked to and from 
market with baskets on their heads. Families packed a tiny church nearby.

But the children never strayed too far from their play area, afraid of a return 
of the firefights between local gangs and United Nations peacekeepers that once 
regularly ripped through the squalid area, leaving gang members and civilians 
dead or wounded.

''You can't let your children out of your sight,'' said Marguerite Joseph, 32, 
tightly clutching her 2-year-old daughter in fear as four black and white U.N. 
armored vehicles ferrying blue-helmeted troops rumbled by her cement-block 
shack.

Over the past weeks, hundreds of U.N. peacekeepers have slowly seized sections 
of Cité Soleil, a densely populated slum of about 200,000 people, once 
dominated by heavily armed gang members who kept kidnap victims there, extorted 
local business people and allegedly raped local women.

The flags of the United Nations and Haiti now flutter from atop the crumbling 
blue bullet-pocked building, once used by the gangs to snipe at U.N. 
peacekeepers, and now a U.N. command post and symbol of progress in Haiti's 
crackdown on the gangs that mushroomed in the wake of former President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's 2004 ouster.

''We want the capital to regain its peace,'' Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard 
Alexis told The Miami Herald during the U.N. forces' predawn Feb. 9 raid to 
take control of the area known as Boston, about a quarter-mile from the 
building.

It is quiet in Boston now, at least for the moment.

U.N. forces now control about 20 percent of Cité Soleil, and the gangs appear 
to be on the run. Scores of gang members have been arrested, and three gang 
leaders -- including Boston's feared former ruler, a young man known as Evans 
or ''Ti-Kouto'' (Creole for Little Knife) -- have contacted Haitian 
authorities, offering to turn in their guns.

Still, many problems remain in the seaside shantytown, a historic stronghold of 
support for Aristide where graffiti still hail him as ''King.'' Residents live 
in row after row of corroding tin-roof shacks next to mounds of garbage and 
open sewers. Money and work are scarce. Misery is plentiful.

''People are hungry,'' said one of a group of young gang members in Cité Soleil 
who blocked a reporter from walking deeper into the slum.

Where there were once chimeres, slang for gunmen loyal to Aristide, who doled 
out government food and jobs to dirt poor residents but controlled their turf 
with a brutal hand, there are now bandi -- bandits who kidnap and rob but 
provide food and water in exchange for residents' silence.

The U.N. peacekeepers first went on the offensive against Cité Soleil's gangs 
in December, after an unprecedented rash of child kidnappings and increasing 
pressure by Haitian lawmakers on Alexis and President René Préval to improve 
the security situation.

Several hundred U.N. peacekeepers and Haitian national police began to launch 
raids into gang-controlled areas and eventually seized control of the Bwa Neuf 
section of the slum after several firefights. Then, on Feb. 9, they seized the 
Boston section in their largest raid to date.

''There are between three and five big bandits [in Port-au-Prince]. . . . Those 
are the ones we really want,'' said Edmond Mulet, the overall head of the U.N. 
mission in Haiti, known as MINUSTAH.

Some of the gang leaders are now fighting for control of the Martissant slum on 
the southern outskirts of Port-au-Prince in battles that have forced many 
residents to flee their homes.

Since the raid, 45 gang members from both Martissant and Cité Soleil have been 
arrested by the Haitian National Police and the peacekeepers, U.N. military 
spokeswoman Laurie Arellano said. But how long they will remain behind bars is 
unclear because Haiti's jails already are severely overcrowded.

On Monday, U.N. officials announced the capture of Johnny Pierre Louis, a Cité 
Soleil gang leader wanted in the killing of relatives of gang members who had 
agreed to join a disarmament program.

Also seized during the Cité Soleil raid Feb. 9 were a Galil assault rifle, 
about 6,000 rounds of ammunition, two telescopes, one binoculars, two laptop 
computers and 27 cellphones. The raiders also found the national identity cards 
of several kidnap victims, Arellano said.

''Now it's possible to walk in Boston without fear, without problems, without 
criminals circulating freely in that area,'' Brazilian Maj. Gen. Carlos Alberto 
dos Santos Cruz, the U.N. military commander, said as he showed off the seized 
loot.

Although Evans was not captured, Dos Santos Cruz said his forces were still 
looking for him.

A Haitian official familiar with a months-old effort to disarm the gangs told 
The Miami Herald that Evans and two other Cité Soleil gang leaders had offered 
to disarm after the U.N. raid -- in exchange for a one-way ticket out of Haiti.

No deal, said the official, who asked for anonymity because of the sensitivity 
of the disarmament program.

But while a degree of normalcy has returned to Cité Soleil, some Aristide 
supporters have complained that the U.N. forces used ''brutal tactics'' in 
their raids.

The U.S.-based Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, headed by Brian 
Concannon Jr., issued a statement Wednesday alleging that the raids caused 
unnecessary ``collateral damage among children, young adults and elderly, men 
and women killed or injured by U.N. bullets.''

Haitian news media reported four civilians dead in the Boston raid, but U.N. 
officials said they could not confirm that number. Fifteen U.N. peacekeepers 
have died and 40 wounded since the U.N. force was deployed to Haiti in 2004.

U.N. officials say they use caution in their offensive and try to limit 
civilian casualties. Many gang members use the same caliber of bullets as the 
U.N. peacekeepers, so it's almost impossible to prove which side shot a person, 
they add.

During a recent walk through Cité Soleil, few residents were willing to discuss 
the gangs or the kidnappings with a correspondent, choosing instead to talk 
about how tough life had become since Aristide's departure.

''Given where we are currently, the fact we have not died yet, it is only 
because of God,'' said Perle Estelan, 47, a husband and a father of three who 
gets by doing odd jobs. ``He's the one who is protecting us, keeping us 
alive.''

Some international and local organizations have tried to help in Cité Soleil. A 
group of Haitian businesses, for instance, provides water through a recently 
started foundation, donating about $1,000 a month. Peacekeepers also contribute 
food and water in areas they have taken control of. And recently, the U.S. 
government announced that it would give Haiti $20 million to help create jobs 
for youths in Cité Soleil.

Mulet, the U.N. chief, and others welcome the aid, saying that more than 
military muscle is needed to root out Haiti's burgeoning gang problem.

''People in Cité Soleil need to see some kind of dividends,'' Mulet said. 
``They need to see the state, the government, is moving in rebuilding schools, 
hospitals, providing development projects.''

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