Monday, July 17, 2006

by Clarens Renois

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): Hope is dimming two months into Haitian President Rene Preval's term that new blood can revive the Western Hemisphere's poorest nation as gang violence retakes the hard-pressed island in its violent grip.

More than 20 people have been confirmed killed over the past week and some 2,000 UN peacekeepers forced to rush back into the island's ravaged capital to try to retake control.

The violence has injured a half-dozen in the United Nations contingent. It was initially blamed on gangs trying to divvy up territory in the city where they could peddle drugs and oversee common trade in the face of meek government authority.

Kidnappings -- including those of the few foreigners still remaining in this Caribbean nation -- that had made the nation notorious but which slowly started to fade back again en force.

The United Nations team for one believes someone is out to discredit Preval's name.

"We are here to keep those who want to destabilize the country and the government from doing so," UN peacekeeping force spokesman David Wimhurst told AFP.

His 7,500-strong MINUSTAH team has soldiers ranging from Brazil to Sri Lanka. Troops from both countries had to be hospitalized this week from gun battle wounds.

The Brazilians were injured in the Cite shantytown, an area that has been all but ceded to armed gangs.

"There are clear indications that someone wants to disturb the climate," Wimhurst said.

Preval, 63, filled a leadership void this year left by Jean Bertrand Aristide, the leader most closely associated with this unstable nation who fled an uprising after a second stint in power in February 2004.

Preval, an agricultural engineer by training, was sworn in May 14 on the back of strong support from the country's frustrated poor.

The new president also won a pledge in a five-minute meeting with President George W. Bush for a US "commitment to stay engaged in helping Haitians build their institutions and economy."

Preval however refuses to say the new violence is aimed at his leadership, just as it was aimed two years earlier against Aristide's. He instead blames the unrest on drug gangs, and claims the political system is holding.

"The political insecurity is mainly under control," Preval told a recent forum of business leaders from the Haitian diaspora.

"The instability that the country is seeing is the result of drug trafficking and the release from prison of kidnappers" that happened in the two years of mayhem before his election, Preval said.

He called for the police force to be combed for criminals and the court system reformed of corruption.

Preval has also introduced a new cabinet official for internal security authorized to introduce a raft of new public safety measures.

But the president is hearing impatient voices from Haitian civic groups and nervous comments from foreign diplomats.

"It is clear that the safety situation is alarming," US Ambassador Janet Sanderson told reporters. Her office has introduced an evening curfew for all personnel.

Human rights groups are calling on authorities to take back control of Haitian streets. They have also verbally assaulted the UN team for failing to stamp out crime flash points.

"We cannot be everywhere at once," replies one frustrated commander with the UN force, speaking on condition of anonymity.

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