Pubdate: Mon, 15 Mar 2004
Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2004 Daily News, L.P.
Contact:  http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/515
Author: James Gordon Meek, New York Daily News

AMERICAN NARCOTICS AGENT IN HAITI FOUGHT OFF GUNMAN

WASHINGTON - DEA agents are eager to hammer Colombian drug thugs in Haiti 
after an ambush last month in which an American narc single- handedly 
fought off more than a dozen gunmen, U.S. officials told the New York Daily 
News.

The Drug Enforcement Administration agent, his wife and a female U.S. 
Embassy official escaped unharmed from the previously undisclosed roadside 
firefight on Feb. 16, a week into the uprising that toppled ex- President 
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"The DEA is eager to improve drug enforcement efforts in Haiti," DEA 
Administrator Karen Tandy told The Daily News. "Although events are still 
unfolding, we hope to have opportunities to do so in the near future."

The harrowing incident is the earliest known violence involving Americans 
since the rebellion in Haiti began.

More than 1,600 Marines are serving as peacekeepers and have gotten into 
nightly firefights that have led to the deaths of at least six Haitians.

Haiti's new prime minister, Gerard Latortue, echoed top U.S. officials when 
he alleged last week that Aristide encouraged Haitian police to help 
Colombian drug smugglers and "sold out the DEA people."

"We are going to establish real cooperation with the DEA in all good faith 
and we'll be their partners," Latortue told The News.

Latortue wasn't surprised to hear of the February ambush, which occurred 
late at night on the road from Canape Vert and the capital, Port-au-Prince.

The Americans, traveling in two cars with diplomatic tags, were returning 
from dinner when they passed through a police checkpoint. Almost 
immediately, they came under fire from as many as 16 gunmen after slowing 
down for road debris, sources told The News.

The DEA agent returned fire, allowing both cars to escape.

"We survived incredible odds in that gun battle and came out unscathed," 
Tandy said in a speech to new agents who graduated Friday. "I don't know 
that the other side fared as well."
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