Haiti-Green Berets
10-1-1994
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
LIMBE, Haiti (AP) _ When Capt. Edmond Barton's squad of 13 Green Berets arrived in this northern Haitian town, they thought they'd be working alongside Haitian police and soldiers to keep order while teaching them to respect human rights.
Problem is, all the Haitian security forces fled, as they have in many northern towns, leaving the U.S. troops as the sole lawmen in Limbe and the surrounding district.
Living in rat-infested, deserted Haitian military barracks, the soldiers are trying to cope with a job that was not part of their mission but was dumped in their laps. U.S. military planners did not envision that Haitian forces would flee the area Monday as a crowd stoned their barracks.
Trekking through rice paddies to check out reports of beatings one day, driving to a village to stop looting the next, the Americans aren't even sure how far their new juristdiction extends.
"The problem here is there's no political system working and no police working for that system," a Green Beret sergeant said in an interview Saturday. "It's absolutely disintegrated."
The Green Berets, and U.S. troops throughout Haiti, are sitting atop a potentially explosive situation. Revenge attacks have begun against the repressive Haitian security forces, though cases are isolated and it is far from the bloodbath many feared.
A crowd of Limbe residents Wednesday cornered a Haitian soldier who had fled his post here two days earlier and attacked him with machetes. The Americans had to pull him away, and a Special Forces medic sowed up his slash wounds with 50 stitches.
Green Beret patrols have been looking for the body of a Haitian sheriff who local residents say was disembowled Thursday and had his eyes gouged out before being slain, said the Green Beret sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Desperate to find local police to help, the Green Berets tried to recruit a Haitian police lieutenant who had left the nearby town of Plaisance and was passing through Limbe on Friday.
"We told him to go to Cap-Haitien (the closest city) and check with the military there about coming to work in Limbe," the sergeant said.
The man never re-appeared.
Late Friday, a crowd in Cap-Haitien cornered a Haitian police lieutenant and demanded his gun.
Terrified, the man accidentally shot himself while pulling the gun out. The Green Berets said they heard a report the man died, and are worried it was the same Haitian police officer they had dispatched to Cap-Haitien.
Instead of becoming a new police force, the Green Berets intended to keep local forces in place until exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is restored to power. Events have overtaken that plan as Haitian forces, fearing a bloody popular uprising, have fled in Limbe, Cap-Haitien and other towns.
Political leaders are also laying low. As part of the ruling class, they fear reprisal attacks by the poor who have been repressed for so long.
"We're trying to keep the same police forces in place until the new government comes in and makes its own changes," the Green Beret sergeant said as he prepared to go out on another patrol. "But the Haitian people are trying to make their own changes."
^By ANDREW SELSKY
^Associated Press Writer
LIMBE, Haiti (AP) _ When Capt. Edmond Barton's squad of 13 Green Berets arrived in this northern Haitian town, they thought they'd be working alongside Haitian police and soldiers to keep order while teaching them to respect human rights.
Problem is, all the Haitian security forces fled, as they have in many northern towns, leaving the U.S. troops as the sole lawmen in Limbe and the surrounding district.
Living in rat-infested, deserted Haitian military barracks, the soldiers are trying to cope with a job that was not part of their mission but was dumped in their laps. U.S. military planners did not envision that Haitian forces would flee the area Monday as a crowd stoned their barracks.
Trekking through rice paddies to check out reports of beatings one day, driving to a village to stop looting the next, the Americans aren't even sure how far their new juristdiction extends.
"The problem here is there's no political system working and no police working for that system," a Green Beret sergeant said in an interview Saturday. "It's absolutely disintegrated."
The Green Berets, and U.S. troops throughout Haiti, are sitting atop a potentially explosive situation. Revenge attacks have begun against the repressive Haitian security forces, though cases are isolated and it is far from the bloodbath many feared.
A crowd of Limbe residents Wednesday cornered a Haitian soldier who had fled his post here two days earlier and attacked him with machetes. The Americans had to pull him away, and a Special Forces medic sowed up his slash wounds with 50 stitches.
Green Beret patrols have been looking for the body of a Haitian sheriff who local residents say was disembowled Thursday and had his eyes gouged out before being slain, said the Green Beret sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Desperate to find local police to help, the Green Berets tried to recruit a Haitian police lieutenant who had left the nearby town of Plaisance and was passing through Limbe on Friday.
"We told him to go to Cap-Haitien (the closest city) and check with the military there about coming to work in Limbe," the sergeant said.
The man never re-appeared.
Late Friday, a crowd in Cap-Haitien cornered a Haitian police lieutenant and demanded his gun.
Terrified, the man accidentally shot himself while pulling the gun out. The Green Berets said they heard a report the man died, and are worried it was the same Haitian police officer they had dispatched to Cap-Haitien.
Instead of becoming a new police force, the Green Berets intended to keep local forces in place until exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide is restored to power. Events have overtaken that plan as Haitian forces, fearing a bloody popular uprising, have fled in Limbe, Cap-Haitien and other towns.
Political leaders are also laying low. As part of the ruling class, they fear reprisal attacks by the poor who have been repressed for so long.
"We're trying to keep the same police forces in place until the new government comes in and makes its own changes," the Green Beret sergeant said as he prepared to go out on another patrol. "But the Haitian people are trying to make their own changes."
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