Miami Herald: Top rebel wavers on disarming (Haiti)

[AZCat]

Posted on Sat, Mar. 06, 2004
CRISIS IN HAITI
Top rebel wavers on disarming

A Haitian rebel leader seesaws on disarming, backers of the exiled president assail President Bush, and the OAS says a council of 'sages' will name a new prime minister.
BY SUSANNAH A. NESMITH AND NANCY SAN MARTIN

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Rebel leader Guy Philippe, in a worrisome flip-flop, said Friday his fighters would not disarm unless they are guaranteed they will not be prosecuted for their role in forcing former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign.
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Philippe, who on Sunday declared himself ''military commander'' of Haiti, then on Monday said he had ordered his men to disarm, told The Herald that he had done nothing to disband his fighters -- and perhaps could not.

''I can give the order. Will they obey me if they don't have a guarantee?'' he said in an interview at the bar of a suburban Petionville hotel. 'You really think they will obey me if I tell them to disarm, like this, with no talk, no guarantee? I can't order them to disarm like this. You can kill the chief, but you wont' find the weapons.''
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''We can't be called upon, expected or required to intervene every time there is violence against a failed leader,'' Boucher said. ``We can't spend our time running around the world and the hemisphere saving people who botched their chance at leadership.''
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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/8120183.htm

[AZCat]

1. This is a companion to this story..........................LINK

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=734&e=2&u=/ap/20040306/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/haiti

Haitian Rebel Fighters Refuse to Disarm


By PAISLEY DODDS, Associated Press Writer

GONAIVES, Haiti - Before a raging fire, rebel fighters in this bleak western town offered metal scraps Saturday to a voodoo war god, portending still more violence for Haiti.

Though rebel leader Guy Philippe has pledged his fighters will disarm, many insist they will not give up their weapons until militant supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide do the same.

Rebels who choose not to show their weapons in public openly admit they have stashed them for later use. And the Gonaives ceremony to the spirit of Ogun Feray -- the war god -- indicates Haiti's bloody uprising -- which started here Feb. 5 and has killed at least 130 people -- might not be over.
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[eablair3]

2. someone armed them, and they will never disarm on their own

does anyone seriously think that these criminals and thugs and murderers are ever going to disarm, no matter what they say.

someone armed these terrorists, ... with American M-16s, M-60s and other weapons.

The Pentagon had said that the weapons are some of the same ones sent to the DR last year. And, now those American weapons are in the hands of terrorists roving the countryside in Haiti. How convenient.

The Bush Admin who is fighting terrorism is sending weapons to foreign countries that end up with terrorists.