PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP):
THE HEAD of Haiti's largest business association yesterday, called for a general strike next week to protest the wave of kidnappings that sparked fear throughout the capital and helped contribute to the chaos that prompted authorities to postpone national elections.
In a radio interview, Reginald Boulos, the president of Haiti's Chamber of Commerce and Industry, urged businesses to stay closed and parents to keep their children out of school Monday to pressure the United Nations peacekeeping mission and the interim Haitian government to do more to crack down on the gangs allegedly behind the kidnappings.
"At any time of day, someone can be kidnapped and killed by the bandits," Boulos said on Radio Metropole.
Most Haitian businesses are small, independent shops and it was unclear what, if any, effect the chamber president's call for a general strike would have on the economy of the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
Boulos was a leading member of a coalition that supported the rebels in the overthrow of former president Jean Bertrand Aristide in February 2004. He is one of the wealthiest men in Haiti, and owns the country's second largest newspaper, Le Matin.
His wife, Mouna Boulos, was kidnapped in November 2003 and held for nine days before she was released.
"The security situation today threatens the very possibility of holding elections," Reginald Boulos told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
Kidnappings surged in Haiti as the movement to oust Aristide gained strength near the end of 2003.
