Hostility grows as U.N. pushes deeper into Haitian slum

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- On the dusty streets of Haiti's largest slum, young men in baggy clothes lounge outside bullet-pocked shacks, listening for the rumble of armored vehicles carrying U.N. peacekeepers.

In the seaside slum of Cite Soleil, those are the sounds that precede gunbattles and bloodshed, sending the youths and everyone else scurrying for cover.

Frustrated by unrelenting kidnappings for ransom, killings and other crime, the United Nations is taking on the powerful gangs that have flourished in the chaos following the ouster of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004.

The raids have the blessing of current President Rene Preval, who angrily warned gangs to "disarm or die" last year.

Most U.N. peacekeeping forces usually deploy only after the guns have fallen silent, but the Haiti mission goes on the offensive almost every day. Sent in more than two years ago, the 9,000-strong force is now pushing ever deeper into Cite Soleil, and holding its ground with bases and checkpoints.

Welcome peacekeepers

Haiti's ruling class welcomes them, and the veto-wielding governments on the U.N. Security Council are united in wanting to see an end to the Caribbean country's nearly two decades of political upheaval.

"It's a new experience in U.N. peacekeeping," said David Wimhurst, a spokesman for the U.N. mission. "It hasn't been easy, but we're making headway."

The crackdown has led to the killing or capture of several alleged gangsters. Critics say it has also taken innocent lives in Cite Soleil, where 300,000 people scrape out a meager existence on streets lined with ditches of raw sewage.

In a major operation Friday, more than 700 U.N. troops stormed Cite Soleil to seize a large swath of the slum from gang control. A firefight lasting several hours left two soldiers injured and at least one suspected gang member dead.

"We're encircling them. It's like a medieval siege, just trying to put pressure on them," Edmond Mulet, the U.N. special envoy to Haiti, told reporters at U.N. headquarters Jan. 29.

Mulet said the force takes fire "every day" and called gang leaders "psychopaths" who wantonly kidnap and kill law-abiding Haitians.

Alix Fils-Aime, a top security adviser to Preval, said the gangs win favor in Cite Soleil in part by sharing their loot with the poor. Robert Argant, president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce, says: "These guys are using the money they steal from people to get others around them to support them."

The gang members insist they are soldiers fighting for equality in a country where about 80 percent of people live on less than $2 a day and a tiny elite controls the economy.

Everyone's a 'gangster'

"They call us gangsters, but everyone in this world is a gangster. When you're hungry, you're mad. When you're thirsty, you're mad. When somebody is against you, you have to be mad," said a gang member, who identified himself only as "Yamoska."

Preval, overwhelmingly elected a year ago, has sent emissaries to the gangs to negotiate a peaceful disarmament, while at the same time deploying the national police to Cite Soleil for the first time since Aristide's ouster.

The government also encourages the gangs to trade their weapons for job training and economic aid, but that effort has only disarmed about 100 men and recovered a small pile of rusty, antiquated guns.

The gang members are no strangers to struggle. After Haiti's now-disbanded army toppled Aristide in a 1991 coup, paramilitary death squads sprayed Aristide's slum strongholds with gunfire, killing an untold number of people. Some of today's gang members were orphaned by the killings, which eased in 1994 when U.S. troops restored Aristide.

Committed to maintaining support in the slums, Aristide sent the gangs money, food and -- by many accounts -- weapons. Many gang members remain loyal to him today and say the U.N. is allied with their enemies. Several told The Associated Press that they want to lay down their arms but fear being vulnerable to U.N. raids.

The latest U.N. offensive began late last year, prompted by a string of bold, daylight kidnappings. Many victims were schoolchildren snatched off the street. One teenager was murdered by her captors after her family failed to come up with a ransom. She had been shot in both eyes.

On Dec. 22, peacekeepers stormed Cite Soleil to break up a kidnap gang. When fighting ended five hours later, at least six people were dead and an unknown number wounded, the U.N. said.

The U.N. force said only gang members died, citing information from informants. But people in Cite Soleil said at least 10 people were killed and none were gang members. They gathered the bodies in an empty schoolhouse and demanded justice as female relatives sobbed.

"People have been killed, houses have been burned and lives have been destroyed. We want an investigation," said Webster Maurice, a Cite Soleil activist.

U.N. officials say peacekeepers try to avoid harming bystanders.

In most of the U.N.'s 15 peacekeeping missions around the world, international troops are used mainly as police to maintain order in post-conflict countries. Peacekeepers have clashed with militants in Congo and Sierra Leone, but only in Haiti do they routinely take on armed street gangs, the U.N.'s Wimhurst said.

"We normally deal with rebel groups or armed factions who have leaders and have agreed to disarm or enter into a political agreement. Here, none of that is true. They're just a bunch of gangs who fight us," he said.

Fifteen foreign soldiers and police have died, including several killed in clashes with gangs.

In most raids, blue-helmeted peacekeepers enter the slums in armored cars and on foot to secure gang-controlled neighborhoods, arrest criminals and recover weapons. They may fire only if attacked.

Few in Haiti believe Cite Soleil will calm down unless its staggering poverty is addressed.

The United States recently announced a $20 million grant to create jobs and provide other aid, and foreign donors are helping to improve the ill-equipped police force. But the country still only has about 6,000 police -- an eighth of what it is thought to need.