A10
EZ SU
KLMNO THE WORLD
U.S., S. Korea move forward with exercises
NORTH READIES MISSILES
Evacuation order lifted on island
BY DAVID GUTTENFELDER AND KIM KWANG-TAE
PHOTOS BY NIKKI KAHN/THE WASHINGTON POST Haiti presidential candidateMichelMartelly, known as "SweetMicky" holds a rally near the presidential palace in Port-Au-Prince. Haiti’s chance for change Emotions are high as people struggle to secure the ID cards needed to vote for a new president BY NICK MIROFF IN PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI I
n the hills above this capital, the crowds pushed and jostled all day Saturday at the doors
of the cracked government build- ings of Petionville, its central square now a squalid tent camp. Inside were the boxes of un-
claimed identification cards that Haitians need to vote in Sunday’s election. Outside, men and wom- en who had been standing since sunrise waved their tattered pa- perwork at insouciant govern- ment clerks. And when the clock struck
4:30 p.m. — quitting time — the clerks shut the doors, locked the gates and told the crowd to come back later, after the election. “We want our cards! Give us
our cards!” the crowd shouted, scattering as police moved in. And so, Rachel Pierre, 20,
headed back home to the tent she shares with her family and 3- year-old daughter, still lacking the card that might verify her existence and allow her to cast a ballot. “There is no work here. There is nothing,” she said. “It would have been my first time voting.” For Pierre and many others
trying to go to Haiti’s polls Sun- day, the election will be a tense occasion, with some degree of disappointment almost certain. Apathy, a cholera outbreak and fear of violence might keep some away from voting stations, while an unknown number of others won’t be eligible without their identification cards, many of which were lost in the Jan. 12 quake that killed 300,000. But Sunday will also be chance
for Haitians to exert a bit of control over chaotic lives that have been beset by one disaster after another, natural and man- made.
Picking from the field of 19
candidates seemed less impor- tant to many here than simply doing something to replace the administration of outgoing Presi- dent Rene Preval, who is widely seen as weak and ineffective. “I don’t care who wins, as long
as it’s someone new,” said Leonor Laguerre, 56, making his fourth attempt to acquire an ID card.
U.N. military deliver ballot boxes to a camp in Port-Au-Prince. Haitians will cast votes for a newpresident on Sunday.
“I don’t care who wins, as long as it’s someone new.”
Leonor Laguerre, making his fourth attempt to acquire an ID card
“For Haiti to develop, we have to have a new president.” If no candidate receives more
than 50 percent of the vote, a runoff will be held in January. Voters will also choose candi- dates for Parliament and a third of the Senate. The international aid organi-
zations and foreign governments keeping this country propped up also viewthe election as a critical step toward accelerating the re- construction process. An election marred by low turnout and vio- lence mightmay hamper the flow of international aid, but a reason- ably orderly process could speed the delivery of the $6 billion pledged by the United States and other donor nations, of which only $732 million has arrived. Government buildings — the
ones that weren’t knocked down in the quake — were mobbed all week by Haitians trying to get identification cards. “I have no life, no home, no business,” said Louis Jacques, 44,
a father of three whose house had collapsed, sending his family into a tent camp and a perilous exis- tence. Like others in line, Jacques
would not say which candidate he planned to vote for, as he was pressed against otherswhomight virulently disagree with his choice. “I think the man I will choose will make things better,” he said, before adding, “but a lot ofmenchange when they get into office.” Election results may take days,
if not weeks to sort through, but the one candidate whose vote tallies may spark violence is Jude Celestin, Preval’s hand-picked successor. His rivals and their backersseempoised to accuse the government of fraud if his vote totals appear to exceed his per- ceived level of support. Observers from theUnitedNations, Organi- zation of American States and other groups will monitor the balloting, and theUnited States is providing $14 million in election- related aid. Other leading candidates in-
clude a former first lady, Mir- lande Manigat, 70, a Sorbonne- educated professor who has posi- tioned herself as a candidate of maturity and competence, and Michel “Sweet Micky” Martelly, 49, a popular musician known for performing in drag who has a large youth following. Several former associates of former president Jean-Bertrand
Aristide are running, and be- cause he remains popular, espe- cially among the poorest Hai- tians, his status in exile also seems to hang in the balance, with loyalists hinting they would help him return. On Saturday, the government
attempted to bring some degree of calm, restricting gun permits and alcohol sales and ordering motorcycles off the streets. That followed a week of colorful, rau- cous and sometimes violent cam- paigning ended Friday with free- wheeling rallies and loud cara- vans that choked the capital. In the Delmas neighborhood, a
flatbed truck loaded with giant speakers clogged the main artery, blasting high-decibel chants of “Vote! Vote! Vote for Voltaire!” over deafening dance music. Teenagers riding atop the speak- ers rained small campaign fliers onto passing cars promoting can- didate Leslie Voltaire, a former Aristide minister. The fliers carried Aristide’s
symbol, a red rooster, boasting “the rooster has returned.” As they fell, they quickly blended in with the rest of the garbage lining in the streets, carried off by trick- ling rivulets of sewage. Another candidate close to
Aristide, Jean-Henry Ceant, set up a massive stage in the middle of the rough Bel Air neighbor- hood Friday night, as men on ATVs raced through the crowd, performing wheelies and tire- melting doughnut patterns. Guillolene Basile, 23, wearing a
Ceant T-shirt, chanted his name and pumped her fist in the air. Someone in her tent camp was found dead in the latrines two days earlier, killed by cholera, she said. “We are hungry.We can’t go to
school.Wedon’thaveanymoney,” she shouted. “We want Ceant!” Her passion is a concern to
others who have been through previous cycles of election vio- lence. “I am worried about tomor-
row,” said Frantz Edward, a for- mer mayoral candidate who helped organize the line at the ID card office downstairs from his barren law office. “Once people are in power here, they have a hard time letting it go.”
miroffn@washpost.com
DIGEST IRELAND
Thousands protest ahead of bailout deal Ireland entered the final hours
ofnegotiations foremergency Eu- ropean Union and IMF loans on Saturday with attention focused on the interest rate its taxpayers will be forced to pay to bail out their government and banks. Negotiators were holed up in a
250-year-old Dublin luxury hotel to finalize the deal, expected to be announced after a teleconference of E.U. finance ministers Sunday afternoon. Meanwhile, thousands of dem-
onstrators marched through Dublin’s streets to protest the deal, which E.U. leaders hope will prevent the crisis from spreading to Portugal and Spain and threat-
ening the euro. The parties expected to form
the next Irish government said a deal would be unacceptable if the interest rate is too high. The government denied media re- ports that the overall package would cost taxpayers as much as 6.7 percent a year. Ireland has been forced to turn
to the European Union and IMF to save it from a financial crisis rooted in years of reckless bank lending that turned bad after the collapse of a property boom. —Reuters
IRAN
First nuclear reactor to start up by January Technicians have finished
loading fuel into Iran’s first nucle-
ar power reactor and aim to start up the facility by late January, the country’s nuclear chief said Sat- urday. The Bushehr power plant, a
project completed with Russian help but beset by years of delays, will deliver Iran the main stated goal of its atomic work: the gener- ation of nuclear power. The United States and some of
its allies, however, say the plant is part of a civil energy program that Iran is using as cover for secretly developing a nuclear weapons capability. Iran denies the accusation. Nuclear chief Ali Akbar Salehi
said it will be another month or two before the 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor at Bushehr begins pumping electricity to Ira- nian cities and again denied that the Stuxnet computer worm had
set back Iran’s nuclear work. —Associated Press
12 arrested over Baghdad church attack: Iraqi security forces arrested 12 suspected al- Qaeda members, including al- Qaeda’s Baghdad leader, Huthai- fa al-Batawi, in connection with an attack on a Catholic church in Baghdad, a security official said. Fifty-two hostages and police were killed when Iraqi forces tried to free more than 100 Catho- lics taken hostage during a Sun- dayMass four weeks ago.
Rio police issue ultimatum to drug traffickers: Police in Rio de Janeiro gave drug traffickers holed up in a hillside slum an ultimatum to turn themselves in and help end a wave of urban violence that has killed at least 46
people. More than 1,000 police and army officers surrounded the shantytown, and a police spokes- man said the deadline for the drug members to surrender was “when the sun sets.”
Qantas A380 flies again: A Qan- tas A380 carrying more than 450 passengers, including the air- line’s chief executive, took to the skies in the first flight by one of its superjumbos since a midair en- gine explosion three weeks ago. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce said he was flying the first leg of the Sydney-Singapore-London flight as a sign of the airline’sconviction that the planes arenowsafe to fly.
Mayoral polls boost Taiwan’s rul- ing party: Taiwan’s rulingNation- alist Party won three out of five mayoral races, including in Tai-
pei, in a boost for President Ma Ying-jeou’s policy of improving relations with China ahead of a 2012 presidential poll. But the main opposition Democratic Pro- gressive Party, which wants to slow reconciliation with the mainland, won about 50 percent of the overall mayoral vote, sig- naling strong opposition to Ma’s expected reelection bid.
Chavez promotes controversial general: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez promoted a general who sparked controversy by sug- gesting the military would not accept an electoral return to pow- er by government opponents. Chavez granted Gen. Henry Ran- gel Silva the rank of general-in- chief, calling him a “humble and great soldier.”
—From news services
yeonpyeong island, south korea — South Korea and the United States on Sunday began jointmilitary exercises,whichwill include live fire and bombing drills, as hermetic North Korea deployedmissiles close to the Yel- low Sea and warned that it will turn the region into “a merciless shower of fire” if its territory is violated. SouthKoreanofficialssaidthe
exercises, calledinresponse to the North’s deadly artillery barrage last week of civilian-inhabited Yeonpyeong island, began when the USS George Washington air- craft carrier strike group entered the exercise zone, along with South Korean warships. Officials said the live fire exercises would beginlater Sunday. Tensionswerehigh, as anemer-
gency evacuation was ordered Sunday morning for the remain- ing two dozen or so civilian resi- dents on Yeonpyeong afterNorth- ern artillery fire was heard. The order cameat 11:18inthemorning local time, according to Korea’s Yonhap News Agency, quoting an official from South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, and was lifted just twominutes beforenoon. Yonhap,meanwhile, quoted
South Korean military sources saying North Korea had deployed Soviet-made SA-2 surface-to-air missiles to itsWest Coast near the Yellow Sea, as well as placing lon- ger-range surface missiles on launch pads on the Northwest Coastnear the front line. South Korean military officials
said the deployments appeared aimed at any American or South Korean aircraft that cross the “Northern Limit Line,” or the Yel- lowSeamaritime border dividing the twoKoreas. NorthKorea, in a weekend statement, warned that the exercises would bring the re- gionto the “brink ofwar.” TheNorth,meanwhile,worked
to justify one of the worst attacks on South Korean territory since the 1950-53 Korean War. Four South Koreans, including two ci- vilians,diedafter theNorthrained artillery Tuesday on the small Yel- lowSea islandofYeonpyeong. NorthKorea said civilianswere
used as a “human shield” around artillery positions and lashed out at what it called a “propaganda
campaign” againstPyongyang. It saidtheUnitedStatesorches-
trated the clash so that it could stage joint naval exercises in the Yellow Sea with the South, to in- clude a U.S. nuclear-powered su- percarrier. The drills, planned for Sunday, have enraged the North and made neighboring China un- easy. China sent a senior official,
State Councilor Dai Bingguo, to Seoul on Saturday for talks with ForeignMinisterKimSung-hwan, South Korea’s Yonhap news agen- cy reported. Dai, accompanied by chief Chinese nuclear negotiator WuDawei,discussedTuesday’s at- tack and international talks on endingNorthKorea’snuclearpro- grams, it said. Washington and Seoul have
pressed China to use its influence on Pyongyang to ease tensions. China is impoverished North Ko- rea’s biggest benefactor and its onlymajor ally. The attack laid bare weakness-
es60yearsafter theKoreanWar in SouthKorea’sdefensesagainst the North, which does not recognize the border drawn by the United Nations at the close of the conflict and which considers waters aroundYeonpyeong its territory. The skirmish prompted Presi-
dentLeeMyung-baktoreplacehis defenseminister onFriday. At a funeral Saturday near
Seoul for the deadmarines, South Korea’s marine commander, Maj. Gen. YouNak-jun, vowed a “thou- sand-fold” retaliation for the at- tack.
Elsewhere in Seoul, about 70
former special-forces troops pro- tested what they called the gov- ernment’s weak response and scuffledwithriot police infront of theDefenseMinistry. The war games involving the
USS George Washington super- carriersignalresolveonthepartof Washington and Seoul to respond strongly to any futureNorthKore- anaggression.However,Washing- ton has insisted that the drills are routine and were planned well beforeTuesday’s attack. Lee told top officials “there is a
possibility North Korea may take provocative actions during the ex- ercise,” and urged themto coordi- nate with U.S. forces to counter any such move, according to a spokesman in the president’s of- ficewho spoke onthe conditionof anonymity,citingofficialprotocol. Lee has ordered reinforce-
ments for the 4,000 troops on YeonpyeongandfourotherYellow Sea islands, as well as top-level weaponry and upgraded rules of engagement.
—AssociatedPress
Washington Post staffwriterKeith Richburg contributed to this report.
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2010
CHUNG SUNG-JUN/GETTY IMAGES
Members of a SouthKorean military veterans organization burn a NorthKorean flag during a weekend demonstration in Seoul.
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