[A-List] Haiti Erupts

["Anyutka" <annewilliamson@xxxxxxx>]

Source: Reuters
   Published: February 8, 2004  Author: Michael Christie

Anti-Aristide revolt spreads in Haiti

Sun 8 February, 2004 22:42


By Michael Christie

SAINT MARC, Haiti (Reuters) - Embattled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide is facing his most serious challenge in months of anti-government
protests as an armed revolt spreads to several more cities in the
impoverished Caribbean nation.

Hundreds of frenzied looters stripped sea containers in the port of Saint
Marc of televisions, radios and corn flour, and set the empty containers
ablaze a day after outnumbered police were forced to flee armed gangs.

A maze of barricades were thrown up in the sprawling slums and streets of
Saint Marc, the largest town on the road north from the capital to the
country's fourth-largest city, Gonaives, where police tried unsuccessfully
on Saturday to restore control after being driven out two days earlier.

Youth gangs, many of whose members carried handguns tucked under their
T-shirts, controlled all travellers to and from Gonaives. Cars could not
pass the barricades made of vehicle carcasses, felled trees, boulders and
smouldering garbage.

In addition to the uprising in Saint Marc, police headquarters were attacked
in the cities of Trou de Nord, Listere and Grand Goave, independent Radio
Metropole said.

Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest once hailed as a champion of the
country's fledgling democracy but now accused by opponents of corruption and
political thuggery, is under rising pressure to resign halfway through his
second term as the poorest country in the Americas spirals into mayhem and
bloodshed.

The revolt has come on top of months of sometimes violent anti-Aristide
demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and other cities in Haiti, a country of 8
million people that has suffered repeated civil wars and dictatorships since
independence 200 years ago, and two U.S. invasions.

POLICE STATION WRECKED

The main police station in Saint Marc was a rubble-strewn, smoking ruin on
Sunday. The neighbouring courthouse was also destroyed. Locals said two
bystanders died when police tried to defend their outpost against attack on
Saturday.

Official government documents lay in the dust under the pounding sun, and
locals ripped whatever electrical cords remained from trashed police
vehicles in the yard.

The city's pro-Aristide mayor fled town, as did other supporters of the
ruling Lavalas Family party, residents said.

"We're just waiting for Aristide to go," said Louis Andrel, a youthful gang
leader with a perpetual smile but also with apparent clout in a city that
appeared to be run by rival, but for now united, armed bands.

"Step by step, town by town. When we have all the departments (districts),
we'll go down to Port-au-Prince," Andrel told Reuters.

Ordinary residents looked on nervously, refusing to be identified to
reporters. "People are scared. The ones who are out in the street aren't,
because they're the ones with the guns," said one man.

Gonaives, a city of an estimated 200,000 people, was taken over by an armed
group run by gang leader Buter Metayer in a bloody assault on police
headquarters and other government buildings on Thursday and Friday. Seven
people were killed.

The rebels, who once belonged to a pro-Aristide gang called the Cannibal
Army, said another 14 police officers died in a failed counterattack on
Saturday. A police source said only two officers had died, but journalists
on Saturday counted at least four police corpses in the streets.

Aristide has said he intends to serve out his second term to 2006. He still
commands support in many areas, although opponents have accused him of
relying on hired thugs.

On Saturday night in Port-au-Prince, government supporters set up barricades
with burning tires throughout the city, prompting organisers of an
anti-government march set for Sunday to postpone it until Thursday.