Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 28, 1994 TAG: 9409280073
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI LENGTH: Medium
U.S. forces ringed the Parliament with coils of barbed wire and stationed soldiers outside in anticipation of today's meeting. If there is a quorum, it will be the first in nearly 18 months.
The troops secured City Hall, once and future headquarters of Evans Paul, the popular Port-au-Prince mayor who lives in hiding from his political foes. Paul aims to return to office by the end of the week.
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Dennis Boxx said 10 exiled parliamentarians would return to Port-au-Prince this morning aboard a Pan American Health Organization flight from Miami. Five of the legislators have been in Florida, the other five in Canada.
Supporters of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide are trying to round up their political allies who have fled into hiding inside Haiti, as well.
Legislators will drive to the session of the National Assembly in a motorcade that may include the diplomatic corps, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Stanley Schrager. He called the session ``a major symbol of the re-establishment of democratic institutions that were overthrown three years ago.''
U.S. soldiers will be posted outside the Parliament building during today's session. They will not be present inside.
The two most prominent issues to be discussed by Parliament in coming days are an amnesty law for Haiti's military regime and a plan to create a police force independent of the country's armed forces and loyal to a civilian government.
Hundreds of people took advantage of the absence of Haitian police on the streets Tuesday and pillaged a charity warehouse run by Salesian priests, hauling away sacks of provisions.
Witnesses said the looting turned into a melee as residents of the slum of St. Jean Bosco scrapped with one another for sacks of rice and beans and cans of food. As the crowd surged out of the warehouse, an elderly woman was trampled and seriously hurt, a Reuter photographer said.
Other warehouses in the capital and the northern city of Cap-Haitien have been looted in recent days. Crowds have also ransacked police stations and military barracks.
A food program manager at CARE said relief agencies had stopped shipments to warehouses until the situation calmed down.
Marines dispersed 100 looters in Cap-Haitien, but U.S. commanders say they are neither equipped nor disposed to be a police force for the entire country.
Americans responding to unrest often arrive to find the crowds gone and the damage done.
``We assume we will eventually assume some kind of responsibility for the safety of the towns,'' said U.S. Army Col. Barry Willey. ``Right now, physically, we're not able to get out there.''
U.S. military officials said an American soldier apparently shot and killed himself while on duty in Port-au-Prince.
Boxx, the Pentagon spokesman, said: ``A member of the 10th Mountain Division has died this morning of an apparent gunshot. He was on duty near the Villa D'Acceuil Hotel in Port-au-Prince. On-scene U.S. authorities are calling it an apparent suicide and are investigating it as such.''
It was the first death of an American soldier since the U.S. intervention began Sept. 19.
As of Tuesday, there were 15,679 members of the U.S. armed forces and 5,500 U.S. military vehicles in Haiti, including 29 light tanks that rolled through the city Tuesday afternoon.
And in a sign of trust in the U.S. presence, another 142 refugees arrived from Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, the second group of volunteers to return since the Americans arrived. On Monday, 221 refugees went home.
Keywords:
FATALITY
by CNB