ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 22, 1993                   TAG: 9310220088
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: From Cox News Service and the Boston Globe
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI                                LENGTH: Medium

ARISTIDE ALLY KIDNAPPED

Efforts to restore Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide were complicated Thursday after pro-military gunmen kidnapped a legislative ally of the exiled leader.

Meanwhile, the Pentagon said a U.S. Coast Guard cutter helping to enforce the United Nations embargo against the impoverished Caribbean nation fired warning shots across the bow of a Haiti-bound merchant ship after it defied orders to sail away.

The vessel, registered in the Caribbean Turks and Caicos Islands, then complied by altering course. The shots were the first fired to enforce the near total U.N. blockade, which began at midnight Monday.

In Washington, the Clinton administration stepped up pressure on Haiti's ruling elite by having the Treasury Department freeze the assets of 41 Haitians it claimed have obstructed democracy.

Names were not disclosed, but Treasury officials said the list included senior military and police officials involved in the 1991 coup that ousted Aristide. Many of them reportedly have extensive financial holdings in the United States.

Meanwhile, the two-week duel between President Clinton and Congress over his authority to engage U.S. troops abroad slouched to an end Thursday, as the Senate declined to limit his ability to commit troops in Haiti, and instead adopted a mild measure urging congressional approval for such ventures.

In a midday vote of 81-19, the Senate overwhelmingly rejected an amendment offered by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., which would have limited the president's ability to use military force in Haiti.

Then the Senate voted 98-2 in favor of a provision declaring that the president should seek congressional approval before sending troops to Haiti - but that measure is non-binding.

The kidnapping reportedly occurred Wednesday night when Samuel Milord, a member of Haiti's lower house of parliament, was forced from his Port-au-Prince residence with at least one relative, bundled into a pickup truck and whisked away. 


 by CNB