PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CMC):

Armed gangs and government representatives are discussing the terms of an agreement for a peaceful disarmament in the violence-torn Caribbean country, police commissioner Frantz Lerebours said yesterday.

Lerebours said the Haitian government was doing all it could to ensure that illegal armed groups peacefully hand over their weapons , but he warned the police, backed by U.N. peacekeepers, would use force to disarm gangs if they failed to do so voluntarily.

"The operational framework for the surrendering of the weapons is being discussed and the gangs will have an interlocutor to whom they may hand over the weapons," the police spokesman stated.

These comments were made two days after gangs in the volatile slum of Cite Soleil in the capital Port-au-Prince decided to shelve their plan to disarm, demanding first that U.N. troops stop conducting raids in the country's gang-controlled largest slum.

Waging attacks

Several gang leaders have accused U.N. soldiers of waging repeated attacks against them while they were planning to surrender their weapons as demanded by the country's new administration. A spokesperson for the 9,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti, Sophie De Lacombe, denied accusations that U.N. blue berets had attacked gangs who vow to disarm voluntarily.

"U.N. peacekeepers only returned fire when they were attacked by gangs," said De Lacombe, adding that gang members may enter the Demobilisation, Disarmament and Rehabilitation (DDR) programme, run by the United Nations.

Haitian and U.N. authorities have been trying to achieve a massive disarmament in an attempt to end a cycle of violence which has already left scores of Haitians killed and wounded.