HAITI:Dozens of UN peacekeepers and Haitian police took up positions around groups of ex-soldiers occupying former military buildings in northern Haiti yesterday and began to negotiate their surrender, officials said.
Tensions between the rebel soldiers and the UN forces rose on Tuesday night in the northern city of Cap-Haitien when civilians supporting the former soldiers' demands for the reinstatement of the Caribbean country's once-feared army threw rocks at the international troops, witnesses said. But by yesterday, the situation had quieted down.
Eucher Luc Joseph, secretary of state for public safety, said the UN forces, backed by armored vehicles, and Haitian police were negotiating with the rebels.
Mr Joseph said earlier that the government would not tolerate a long takeover.
Haiti's minister of the interior, Paul Antoine Bien-Aime, flew to Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, yesterday to seek a resolution.
- (Reuters)