DATE: Saturday, September 13, 1997          TAG: 9709130295

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORT 

DATELINE: MONTROUIS, HAITI                  LENGTH:   67 lines

VOODOO CHARGED AS NAVY DIVERS PREPARE TO RETRIEVE FERRY BODIES

A team of Hampton Roads-based Navy divers prepared Friday for the grisly task of pulling decomposing bodies from a sunken Haitian ferry, in an atmosphere charged with anger over the accident.

Grieving residents on Gonave Island vented their rage Thursday by burning the ferry of a man they accused of using voodoo to hex the rival ferry.

Islanders tried to lynch the wife of ferry owner Tio Djo, who apparently had fled to Miami, fearing for his life.

``You people have good magic. That's why our people are dead,'' residents shouted as they surrounded Djo's wife, Nereus Jean-Joseph, 42, on the outskirts of Anse-a-Galets. Police urged the crowd to be calm.

The three-story ferry Pride of Gonave, on its 10th day of service in Haiti, had left Anse-a-Galets on a one-hour journey northeast to the mainland fishing village of Montrouis, where it sank Monday.

U.N. officials said only 50 of the more than 200 people aboard survived.

Survivors said the ferry flipped over when the captain lowered the anchor and everyone hurried to one side to get off. Doors in the decks below were locked and there were no life jackets, they said.

Mourners were angry that Haiti's government did little to retrieve the drowned before they started decomposing. In Haiti's voodoo religion, it is important to recover bodies and give them last rites, so that the spirits can find final rest.

Canadian divers with the U.N. mission in Haiti did recover 79 bodies in the first few days after the wreck, but stopped work to wait for the better-trained U.S. divers.

The Navy team dispatched to Haiti includes 15 divers from Mobile Diving and Salvage Unit 2 at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base, plus two communications specialists from Navy explosive ordnance disposal units at Little Creek and Fort Story.

They were notified of their assignment Wednesday afternoon and spent Thursday and Friday exploring the wreck, videotaping it and analyzing for a planned recovery operation. They are diving from the Florida-based Coast Guard cutter Confidence.

Lt. Dan Santos, operations officer for the Little Creek-based diving and salvage unit, said several of the Little Creek divers were involved in the salvage of TWA Flight 800 last year off Long Island, N.Y.

``They were out the door pretty quick,'' he said. ``They just go and do their jobs.''

Army Col. Vincent Ogilvie, a spokesman in Panama for the U.S. Southern Command, said Friday afternoon that ``certain legal and sovereignty issues'' had to be resolved before the Navy divers could actually begin an all-out recovery effort that may involve partly dismantling the ferry.

Santos said the ferry is about 120 feet below the surface.

The boat was built in 1943 and was recently renovated in Miami, where Edner Dorival, a Gonave resident, bought it for $100,000, said Venel Pierre, Haiti's National Maritime Service director.

Pierre said the ferry was certified to carry 300 people and that passengers had been warned not to rush out. Doors were locked, he said, to prevent them from doing so. ``The closed doors were a safety precaution,'' he said.

President Rene Preval said the latest disaster might not have happened if the area had a dock, which Haiti cannot afford. MEMO: This story was compiled from reports by The Associated Press and

staff writer David Mayfield. ILLUSTRATION: ASSOCIATED PRESS

Morgue workers remove a body from the shore of Montrouis, Haiti, on

Thursday. More than 200 people were believed killed when a ferry

sank off Haiti's western coast Monday.

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