Saturday, August 5, 2006

by Joseph Guyler Delva

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters): A gang leader in Haiti's largest slum said on Friday that he and others would be willing to lay down their arms as part of a broader disarmament process in the impoverished and violent Caribbean nation.

The comments from Ti Blanc -- who heads a gang in Cite Soleil and said he was speaking for other gang leaders there -- came a day after newly installed President Rene Preval held out an olive branch to the disparate groups linked to continuing political bloodshed and kidnappings in Haiti.

"Several armed groups want to hand over their weapons, but they need guarantees," said Preval. "We have opened a dialogue with them to see how they can give up their weapons in a peaceful manner."

Cite Soleil, a teeming warren of shantytowns on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince, is known as a hotbed of support for ousted former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who fled into exile in 2004 facing an armed revolt.

"We heard the president's call and we want to disarm, but the disarmament should be done without bias," Ti Blanc told Reuters.

He was referring to concern among Cite Soleil's gangs that rival armed groups, some allegedly linked to the Haitian police and to a U.S.-backed interim government installed after Aristide's ouster, would be allowed to keep their weapons.

Cite Soleil's gangs have made other tentative offers to disarm but none of them have borne fruit so far.

After Preval won an election in February, the level of violence in Haiti declined markedly. But it spiked again in July, prompting U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who visited Port-au-Prince on Thursday, to advise the Security Council against cutting back a U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti.

  Most popular articles: viewed, printed and e-mailed

  Printable version