HAITI-UN... Sri Lankan UN peacekeepers perform a ceremony honouring two-killed Sri Lankan colleagues at the UN hospital in Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday. (Photo: AP)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - They hide arsenals of weapons in coffins, show a fierce devotion to their cause and can melt into the population at the first crack of a rifle.

After months of inaction, United Nation officials have vowed to confront violent Haitian gangs that refuse to disarm, but some say success for a relatively small peacekeeping force, unaccustomed to gritty urban fighting, won't be easy against an array of diffuse and heavily-armed groups based in Haiti's vast slums.

The UN peacekeepers in recent days suffered their first two deaths in an offensive against former members of Haiti's disbanded army, and experts say going after the politically-oriented, better-armed street gangs will be more difficult.

The stakes are high: UN and interim Haitian officials fear continued violence could disrupt fall elections needed to fill a power vacuum left after former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's ouster last year.

More than 400 people have died in clashes since September.

The shaky security climate was underscored last week Tuesday when gunmen opened fire outside the house of the Haiti's justice minister, Bernard Gousse, killing a police officer guarding the property. Police have no suspects or motive in the attack.

Past efforts to disarm the gangs failed, most notably a decade ago when US forces restored Aristide to power after he was deposed in a 1991 coup, and again when UN troops took over the peacekeeping mission in 1995.

"(Disarmament) is an even tougher situation today than it was in the mid-1990s," said Peter Gantz, a peacekeeping expert with the Washington-based Refugees International, noting that the UN force has less funds and troops than during its earlier Haiti mission.

Gantz said a main priority for the 7,400-strong Brazilian-led force will be establishing a presence in rough pro-Aristide slums like Cite Soleil and Bel Air, two flashpoints of recent violence.

"The gangs are simply controlling (pro-Aristide slums). There's no rule of law there," said Gantz, who recently visited Haiti to report on peacekeeping efforts.

The difficulty of disarming gangs, many of which received money - and some say guns - under Aristide, stands in contrast to Haiti's other security problem - bands of aging, loosely organized ex-soldiers armed with rusty rifles who helped over throw Aristide in February 2004.

In the first major offensives of its 10-month-old mission, UN troops raided two rural towns over the weekend and easily removed groups of ex-soldiers who had occupied the areas for months. Two peacekeepers and two ex-soldiers died in clashes.

Amid charges of timidity toward armed groups, UN envoy to Haiti Juan Gabriel Valdes said Tuesday peacekeepers were stepping up action to secure elections in October and November, and urged gangs to accept a UN offer to disarm and re-enter society.

"If these offers are not received ... we will follow the same line of firmness that we have followed in the last week vis-a-vis the former military," Valdes said.

But matching recent success against ex-soldiers with gangs will be tough. In the seaside shantytown of Cite Soleil, young men armed with revolvers, AK-47s and aging M-1 rifles still hold sway and often spar with rival groups.

Many remain loyal to Aristide and say they'd give their lives to ensure his return from exile in South Africa. If police or soldiers enter the area, gang members have clever ways to conceal their arms - including stashing them inside coffins that are buried and later dug up - before disappearing down trash-strewn side streets.

With gangs "you have larger groupings that have been active far longer than the ex-military and can blend in with Haitian citizens," said Dan Erikson, a Haiti expert with the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue. "They are not a unified, distinct group in the same way the former military are."

Damian Onses-Cardona, a UN spokesman in Haiti, said peacekeepers can be effective in other ways beyond direct confrontation with gangs.

"It's not a question of going into an area and only (fighting gangs)," Onses-Cardona said. "You can capture gang leaders and make that have an effect on everyone else."

Pro-Aristide gangs have their roots in the 1991 coup, when paramilitary death squads sprayed Aristide's slum strongholds with gunfire. Some of today's Aristide loyalists were orphaned by the killings, which eased in 1994 when
US troops restored Aristide to power.

Many say the fighting will continue unless the angry, young slum dwellers have a better alternative to picking up a gun.

"What these people need are jobs, but there won't be any jobs until there's stability, and there won't be stability until there's a political process safe and open to everyone," Gantz said.

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