Hti: Chamblain surrenders

PORT--AU--PRINCE -- Convicted killer and rebel leader Louis Jodel Chamblain surrendered to police Thursday as Haiti's interim government worked to bring to justice human rights abusers in the Aristide and previous governments.

''The Haitian people will see if justice is for real, if we are on a new route for Haitian justice,'' a tearful Chamblain said before surrendering at the same police station that his rebels seized the day after former President Jean Bertrand Aristide left the country amid a bloody revolt.

A feared paramilitary leader under the military dictatorship that toppled Aristide 1991-1994, Chamblain said he wants a new trial to prove his innocence in the 1994 massacre of dozens of Aristide supporters in the port city of Gonaives and the 1995 assassination of a well-known Aristide backer. He was tried and convicted in absentia.

He will remain in the police lockup until a judge decides his fate, authorities said. Under Haitian law anyone convicted in absentia must be re-tried once captured.

Chamblain's surrender came as a cash-strapped Haitian government opened a daylong meeting of international donors. The government, which is seeking millions of dollars in international aid, has been under mounting foreign pressure to crack down on Chamblain and other anti-Aristide rebel leaders accused of human rights abuses.

Jean-Claude Bajeux, a leading human rights activist heading a government commission charged with investigating thousands of unsolved murders during Aristide's rule, said Chamblain's surrender was a critical step in reforming Haiti's shaky justice system and bringing others like him to trial.

If only Aristide would surrender, too.