US Backed Haitian Police Begin Rounding Up Supporters Of Democratically Elected President

With the capital aquiver over Aristide's looming return to the Caribbean from Africa, police said the arrests were aimed at all wanted criminals, and not just followers of his Lavalas Family party who remained behind after a month-long armed revolt and U.S. pressure drove him into exile on Feb. 29.

"There's a lot of them" to be arrested, Leon Charles, the new director general of the Haitian National Police, told Reuters.

While Charles and other police officials insisted the arrests were not politically motivated, all six new detainees being held on Sunday at the station in the upscale Port-au-Prince suburb of Petionville were from Lavalas.

They included Jacques Anthony Nazaire, in charge of Aristide's car pool, Rospide Petion, an Aristide supporter known as "12" accused of attacking opposition radio stations, and Harold Severe, a former deputy mayor of Port-au-Prince.

All had been charged with associating with criminal groups.

A 2,650-strong international peace force led by U.S. Marines did not appear to have been involved in the arrests.

"They're chasing after people who were with Aristide," Nazaire told Reuters through the jailhouse bars. Asked if he expected a fair trial, he said: "I can't hope for anything. If there was a real effort at reconciliation, this wouldn't be happening."

TROUBLE WITH JAMAICA

Charles acknowledged his police force would not immediately go after convicted human rights abusers and mass killers who fought with the armed rebels that helped send Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected leader, into exile.

"The government has to make a decision about the rebels. That's over my head," Charles said at the Petionville police station after racing up to it in a well-guarded black Toyota Landcruiser.

As the authorities under new interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue appeared to be cracking down, Aristide prepared to return to the Caribbean from Africa. His expected visit to Jamaica, a mere 115 miles from Haiti, has alarmed the new Haitian government and enlivened his followers.
A champion of the poor and father of Haitian democracy who faced increasing accusations of corruption and despotism, the former slum priest has accused Washington of kidnapping him.

White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice repeated the United State's adamant denial of the claim. "The Haitian people need to move forward," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" program.

"And the best thing that President Aristide can do for his people is to now go into the background and let them try and achieve the kind of democratic process and progress that they were unable to achieve under him," she said.

It was not certain on Sunday when Aristide will leave Africa for Jamaica.

A delegation including Randall Robinson, former head of black U.S. lobby group TransAfrica, and U.S. congresswoman Maxine Waters arrived on Sunday in the Central African Republic to whisk him away.

Jamaican lawmaker Sharon Hay Webster told reporters the goal was to arrange for the ousted leader to see his two young U.S.-based children. Aristide has not been granted asylum in Jamaica.

A government official in the Republic's capital Bangui said it was unlikely the delegation would leave before Monday, as President Francois Bozize, who seized power in a coup d'etat on March 15 last year, would want to see them.

Latortue, a former foreign minister and U.N. official named by a council of "wise men" to pick a new Cabinet after Aristide's fall, has slammed Jamaica for "an unfriendly act."

In the slums of Port-au-Prince where Aristide still has support, residents say they hope his proximity to Haiti will pave the way for his eventual return, and stop what they say are reprisal killings and harassment.

Hospital officials say 30 to 40 bodies a day have arrived at the capital's main morgue since the revolt began on Feb. 5, and they are continuing to show up.

Enraged at the loss of the only Haitian leader they say has ever cared about them, slum-dwellers have clashed with U.S. Marines. The Marines have killed six people since arriving.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=worldNews&storyID=4563946