http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040208/1/3huyt.html
AFP - Monday February 9, 6:01 AM
Anti-Aristide violence spreads
Violent opposition to President Jean Bertrand Aristide spread across Haiti,
with protesters setting barricades ablaze while corpses were left in the
streets as rebels beseiged local police stations.
Control of the volatile northern city of Gonaives, where rebels have seized
control, remained uncertain one day after police attempted to take back the
town.
Telephone lines were cut, but television images showed corpses lying in the
roads while men armed with guns, improvised maces and machettes stood on
cars and roamed the streets.
Rebels, who have aligned themselves with the political opposition in
demanding Aristide's resignation, captured and then burned the Gonaives
police station Thursday. They also freed prisoners in a nearby jail.
On Friday, they declared themselves in control of the town, which lies on
the main road linking the capital to Haiti's second city of Cap-Haitien.
Winter Etienne, a leader of the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front
(RARF) rebels, said 14 police were killed in battles Saturday but no
confirmation was possible.
Witness and Haitian media reports said between three and seven police were
killed after police entered the city, where most of the 200,000 inhabitants
had fled.
At least 60 people have died and another 100 injured in Gonaives since
September, when the armed group turned against Aristide after their leader
was found shot and mutilated.
On Sunday, the unrest spread to other towns around the impoverished
Caribbean nation.
Flaming barricades were set in roads in the capital, while an opposition
protest march was cancelled over security fears.
Media reports said burning barricades had been erected in Port-au-Prince
and Cap Haitien, and that the police station in Grand-Goave, west of the
capital, had been burned down after an attack by opponents of Aristide.
Evans Paul, a leader of the political opposition, urged police not to fight
the population, who he said shared the rebels' desire to force Aristide to
step down.
Aristide, who took office in 2000 after elections deemed flawed by
observers, has defiantly refused to step down. On Saturday he vowed that
the leaders of uprising in Gonaives "would be arrested and tried before the
law."
International efforts, led by Caribbean nations and the Organization of
American States, have so far failed to mediate an end to the crisis.
Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was first elected president in 1990,
but eight months after taking office he was overthrown in a bloody military
coup.
The United States sent 20,000 troops to Haiti in 1994 to bring Aristide
back to power. He stepped down after his first five-year term, and was re-
elected in 2000.
Legislative elections were supposed to be held last year, but no electoral
body was set up to oversee the polls, leaving the nation without a
functioning legislature.
Aristide now rules by decree, but has promised elections within six months.
The opposition has rejected his proposal as inadequate, and protests
against Aristide have mounted in recent weeks.
Aristide has accepted some of the Caribbean mediators' suggestions,
including releasing jailed opponents, disarming pro-government groups and
guaranteeing the opposition the freedom to demonstrate.
The political opposition has insisted however that Aristide must stand down.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040208/3/3huy9.html
Reuters - Monday February 9, 5:08 AM
Aristide foes seek control of more Haitian cities
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.
Anti-government opponents attacked the main police station and threw up a
maze of barricades in Saint Marc, on the road to the port of Gonaives,
where police tried but failed to take back control of the city from an
armed band several hundred strong on Saturday.
Local radio stations also reported that Aristide foes had attacked the
police headquarters in three other cities, forcing outnumbered policemen to
flee.
The main police station in Saint Marc, a sprawling port city about 65 miles
(105 km) north of the Haitian capital on the road to Gonaives, was attacked
on Saturday and government opponents were in control by Sunday.
The city's mayor also left town, as did other supporters of the ruling
Lavalas Family party, residents said.
A local youth said two bystanders were killed when police fired as their
station came under attack, but this could not be independently confirmed.
An armed group took over Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city and the
birthplace of its independence from France in 1804, in a bloody assault on
police headquarters and other government buildings on Thursday and Friday
in which seven people were killed.
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, appeared to be facing a growing threat from armed
opponents.
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.
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 is the poorest in the Americas and has a long history
of political instability.
A column of up to 150 police special forces poured into Gonaives on
Saturday to try to retake the city, but they were ambushed by armed members
of a several hundred-strong band formed from a once pro-Aristide gang
called the Cannibal Army.
Radio reports quoted rebels as saying 14 policemen were killed. But a
police source said on Sunday that only two policemen died.
BARRICADES, TRASHED POLICE STATION
At the entrances to Saint Marc, where the armed Assembly of Militants of
Saint Marc has been calling for Aristide's departure in recent months,
youths manned barricades made from car parts, chopped down trees and boulders.
"This president is bad. First it was Gonaives, and now it's Saint Marc,"
said one youth aged about 15 who did not give his name.
The police station had been burned and trashed, official documents lay in
the dust, windows were shattered and doors carted away. The city's court
house had also been burned.
Looters worked through containers at the city's small port, taking bags of
corn, and radios and televisions.
At the main entrance to the city in the direction of Gonaives, about 40
miles (65 km) further north, the rebels had commandeered a truck loaded
with plantains and used it to block the road.
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.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040208/1/3husb.html
AFP - Sunday February 8, 11:57 PM
Haiti city cut off as anti-Aristide violence spreads
Communications with the northern Haitian city of Gonaives were cut as
unrest against President Jean Bertrand Aristide spread.
Opposition parties were to hold anti-government demonstrations across the
impoverished Caribbean republic and a police station was attacked in a town
near the capital, Port-au-Prince.
It was not know who controlled Gonaives where police reinforcements were
sent Saturday, two days after rebels attacked the city's main police
station sparking battles that left several dead.
Witness and Haitian media reports said between three and seven police were
killed after police entered the city, which most of the 200,000 inhabitants
had fled.
A rebel leader, Etienne Winter, said 14 police had been killed but there
was no independent confirmation of this.
Gonaives, in the northwest of the country, is on the main road from Port-
au-Prince to Haiti's second city, Cap-Haitien.
Rebels have joined opposition parties in demanding that Aristide stand down.
Media reports said that burning barricades had been erected in Port-au-
Prince and Cap Haitien, and that the police station in Grand-Goave, west of
the capital, had been burned down after an attack by opponents of Aristide.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040207/3/3humy.html
Reuters - Sunday February 8, 5:53 AM
Haiti rebels say 14 police slain in shootout
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Rebels say they have killed 14 policemen
in a shootout with the authorities who tried to retake control of Haiti's
fourth largest city from an anti-government group, the rebels told local
radio stations.
Journalists at the scene said the firefight erupted when a police caravan
tried to enter Gonaives to take it back from an armed band that took
control of the city on Friday and is demanding that embattled President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide quit.
Local radio reports on Saturday quoted rebels as saying 14 policemen were
killed in the fighting with members of the Front for Aristide's Departure
in the port city about 105 miles (170 km) from the capital, Port-au-Prince.
It was not immediately possible to confirm the death toll, and there were
no reports of rebel casualties.
There were conflicting reports over which side controlled Gonaives.
The crisis in Gonaives has come on top of months of sometimes violent
demonstrations in Port-au-Prince and other cities in the impoverished
Caribbean nation of 8 million people, mostly organised by Aristide
opponents calling on him to quit.
The president's political foes accuse him of corruption and mismanagement.
But the former Roman Catholic priest, once widely hailed as a leader of the
country's fledgling democracy, also now faces a serious threat from armed
opponents.
ARISTIDE TALKS TO CROWD
In the capital, Aristide told a crowd in the capital's slum of Cite Soleil
that police were entering Gonaives to regain order, and said the government
would "disarm the terrorists."
Government spokesman Mario Dupuy said on local radio stations that the
police were once again in control of Gonaives. But rebel spokesman Wynter
Etienne told radio stations that his forces maintained control.
Gunmen from the Front for Aristide's Departure stormed the Gonaives police
station on Thursday and the Red Cross said at least seven people were
killed in a shoot-out there. On Friday, the group, whose members number
several hundred, burned down the mayor's home and released scores of prisoners.
As police and the front exchanged fire in one part of town on Saturday,
thousands of civilians demonstrated in another, calling for Aristide's
departure, journalists on the scene said.
Local radio stations reported that the streets of Gonaives were calm at
midday and said civilians celebrated as police officers fled the city on
foot. Members of the opposition front had barricaded the road out of the
city with overturned vehicles, branches and boulders, according to witnesses.
In Port-au-Prince, Aristide was celebrating the third anniversary of his
return to power in 2001 after re-election with thousands of supporters, who
then marched through the streets proclaiming their support for him.
"This was democracy that we made. It's anarchy that they have made," said
Rubens Sofor, one of the hundreds of Aristide supporters filing down
winding streets toward the pro-government demonstration.
Gonaives' front, formerly known as the Cannibal Army, had once been a
militantly pro-Aristide group, notorious for its attacks on government critics.
But after the murder last September of the gang's leader, which his family
accused Aristide of ordering, the group turned violently against the
president. Dozens of people have since been killed in violence between the
front and the police in recent months.
Gonaives, whose population was estimated at 200,000 before many residents
fled the violence last fall, is commonly called the City of Independence,
as it was where Haitian independence from France was declared in 1804.
Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1991 but
was promptly ousted in a military coup. He was returned to Haiti by U.S.-
led forces in 1994 and was re-elected in 2000. His once massive support has
dwindled in recent years, but he has said he will serve out his term to 2006.
Sunday February 8, 3:07 AM
Police move into seized Haitian city of Gonaives as strife deepens
ADVERTISEMENT
AFP Photo
Police streamed into this rebel-held city in Haiti to try to pry it out of
the hands of rebels demanding the resignation of embattled President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide.
Police in about a dozen all-terrain vehicles started rumbling into Haiti's
fourth-largest city, in the north of the impoverished Caribbean republic,
at around 10:30 am local time (1730 GMT) "to protect the civilian
population," Haiti's Communications Minister Mario Dupuy said, warning:
"Those who are responsible will be punished."
There was no immediate word on clashes, and rebels claimed they still held
the city.
Local correspondents said two people were wounded as police moved in.
Rebels attacked the main police station in Gonaives on Thursday, in a
battle that left at least 11 dead, according to the Haitian Red Cross.
It was the most serious challenge yet to Aristide, who has faced a steadily
mounting opposition campaign demanding that he leave office.
Aristide supporters were expected to march, meanwhile, in the capital,
Port-au-Prince, later Saturday to mark his third anniversary in office.
Another police station in the city of Trou du Nord was taken over by armed
men on Friday, local correspondents said.
It was not immediately clear if the armed men were with the Revolutionary
Artibonite Resistance Front (RARF), which carried out the assault on Gonaives.
Gonaives, a coastal city, has been hit since last September with sporadic
anti-Aristide violence, in which some 53 people have been killed and 119
have been wounded.
The symbolic significance of the fall of Gonaives is important in Haiti.
It was there that Haiti's independence was proclaimed on January 1, 1804,
and there that, in 1985, the fight against Jean-Claude Duvalier began,
leading to the fall of his dictatorship in February 1986.
And it poses a logistical nightmare for the government. Gonaives supplies
essential goods, including gasoline, to the entire north of the country,
including Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haitien.
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince released a statement strongly condemning
the violence.
"The United States categorically rejects any violence used as a means to
achieve political aims," said an embassy statement.
It also reaffirmed support for efforts by the Caribbean Community (Caricom)
group of nations to mediate the crisis, which has seen mounting
demonstrations against Aristide in recent months.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has also expressed concern at the crisis.
Aristide in theory has accepted some of the Caricom mediators' suggestions,
including releasing jailed opponents, disarming pro-government irregular
groups and guaranteeing the opposition the freedom to demonstrate.
If Aristide does not follow through, he will lose Caricom political support
and potentially face sanctions, a diplomatic source stressed privately.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040207/1/3huls.html
AFP - Sunday February 8, 3:07 AM
Police move into seized Haitian city of Gonaives as strife deepens
Police streamed into this rebel-held city in Haiti to try to pry it out of
the hands of rebels demanding the resignation of embattled President Jean-
Bertrand Aristide.
Police in about a dozen all-terrain vehicles started rumbling into Haiti's
fourth-largest city, in the north of the impoverished Caribbean republic,
at around 10:30 am local time (1730 GMT) "to protect the civilian
population," Haiti's Communications Minister Mario Dupuy said, warning:
"Those who are responsible will be punished."
There was no immediate word on clashes, and rebels claimed they still held
the city.
Local correspondents said two people were wounded as police moved in.
Rebels attacked the main police station in Gonaives on Thursday, in a
battle that left at least 11 dead, according to the Haitian Red Cross.
It was the most serious challenge yet to Aristide, who has faced a steadily
mounting opposition campaign demanding that he leave office.
Aristide supporters were expected to march, meanwhile, in the capital,
Port-au-Prince, later Saturday to mark his third anniversary in office.
Another police station in the city of Trou du Nord was taken over by armed
men on Friday, local correspondents said.
It was not immediately clear if the armed men were with the Revolutionary
Artibonite Resistance Front (RARF), which carried out the assault on Gonaives.
Gonaives, a coastal city, has been hit since last September with sporadic
anti-Aristide violence, in which some 53 people have been killed and 119
have been wounded.
The symbolic significance of the fall of Gonaives is important in Haiti.
It was there that Haiti's independence was proclaimed on January 1, 1804,
and there that, in 1985, the fight against Jean-Claude Duvalier began,
leading to the fall of his dictatorship in February 1986.
And it poses a logistical nightmare for the government. Gonaives supplies
essential goods, including gasoline, to the entire north of the country,
including Haiti's second-largest city, Cap-Haitien.
The US embassy in Port-au-Prince released a statement strongly condemning
the violence.
"The United States categorically rejects any violence used as a means to
achieve political aims," said an embassy statement.
It also reaffirmed support for efforts by the Caribbean Community (Caricom)
group of nations to mediate the crisis, which has seen mounting
demonstrations against Aristide in recent months.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has also expressed concern at the crisis.
Aristide in theory has accepted some of the Caricom mediators' suggestions,
including releasing jailed opponents, disarming pro-government irregular
groups and guaranteeing the opposition the freedom to demonstrate.
If Aristide does not follow through, he will lose Caricom political support
and potentially face sanctions, a diplomatic source stressed privately.
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040207/3/3hu76.html
Reuters - Saturday February 7, 10:17 PM
Gunmen take over Haitian city
By Marco Trujillo
GONAIVES, Haiti (Reuters) - An armed group opposed to Haiti's embattled
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide have taken over the poor Caribbean
nation's fourth-largest city, burning down the mayor's home and releasing
scores of prisoners.
The gunmen, who used to belong to a pro-Aristide gang, attacked the police
station in Gonaives on Thursday and said they intended to move on from the
northern city and "liberate" others, including Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-
largest city.
The Red Cross said seven people were killed in the shootout that took place
during Thursday's attack on the police post, one of the bloodiest
confrontations in escalating tensions between the government of the poorest
country in the Americas and its opponents.
The Haitian National Police officers fled.
Government spokesman Mario Dupuy said the authorities intended to re-
establish order in Gonaives, 105 miles (170 km) from the capital Port-au-
Prince.
But journalists said an attempt by police on Friday to re-enter Gonaives --
the city where Haiti declared independence from France and freedom from
slavery in 1804 -- met with gunfire and their helicopter had to retreat.
"These guys have heavy weapons, weapons that even the police don't have,"
said Guy Delva, secretary general of the Association of Haitian Journalists.
Witnesses said the group had freed scores of prisoners from a prison in the
same compound as the police station, and torched the home and warehouse of
pro-Aristide Mayor Stephen Moise. Looters then stripped the remains of the
police station and a fire station bare, and set fire to gasoline stations.
"No one would prevent them from doing it. They can do what they want,"
Delva said.
Rebel leader Buter Metayer said his group, calling itself the Artibonite
Resistance Front, would only hand in their weapons if Aristide stepped down.
"We tell the national and international community clearly that once
President Aristide departs, we will commit ourselves to handing over our
guns," Metayer told Reuters Television.
The gunmen once belonged to the Cannibal Army, which had supported Aristide
but turned against him when its leader, Amiot Metayer, was killed in
September. Buter Metayer accused Aristide of being behind his brother's murder.
Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest now serving his second term as
president, has come under increasing pressure to resign. Opposition groups
accuse him of corruption and human rights violations.
Aristide was elected Haiti's first democratic leader in 1990 but was ousted
in a coup within months. He was restored to power in 1994 after a U.S.-led
invasion and won a second five-year term in 2000.
ST. MARC, Haiti, Feb. 8, 2004, 8:20 pm (AP - Michael Norton)
-- Hundreds of Haitians looted TV sets, mattresses and sacks of flour
from shipping containers Sunday in
this port town, one of several communities seized by rebels in a
bloody uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
Using felled trees, flaming tires and car chassis, residents blocked
streets throughout St. Marc a day after militants drove out
police in gunbattles that killed two people. Many residents have
formed neighborhood groups to back insurgents in their push to expel
the president.
"After Aristide leaves, the country will return to normal," said Axel
Philippe, 34, among dozens massed on the highway leading
to St. Marc, a city of about 100,000 located some 45 miles northwest
of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
At least 18 people have been killed since armed opponents of Aristide began
their assault Thursday, setting police stations on
fire and driving officers from the northwestern city of Gonaives --
Haiti's fourth-largest city -- and several smaller nearby towns.
Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party won flawed
legislative elections in 2000. The opposition refuses to join
in any new vote unless the president resigns; he insists on serving
out his term, which ends in 2006.
Clashes between government opponents, police and Aristide supporters have
killed at least 69 people since mid-
September.
In the bloodiest fights of recent days, 150 police tried to retake control
of Gonaives on Saturday but left hours later after
meeting fierce resistance, witnesses said. At least nine people were
killed, seven of them police, in gunbattles with rebels hiding on
side streets and crouched in doorways.
Crowds mutilated and beat the corpses of three police officers. One body
was dragged through the street as a man swung at
it with a machete, and a woman cut off the officer's ear. Another
policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents
dropped large rocks on his body.
Haitian radio stations reported claims by other rebels that as many as 14
police were killed in Gonaives on Saturday, but that
couldn't be confirmed.
Before dawn Sunday, arsonists burned down a two-story building in northern
Cap-Haitien housing the studio of Radio Vision
2000, the independent Haitian broadcaster said.
Rebels continued to rule the streets of Gonaives on Sunday, witnesses said,
though it was unclear how many armed militants were
the city of 200,000.
Calling the violence acts of terrorism, the government has vowed to regain
control of the area, but it was unclear when police
planned to return.
Police have deserted at least six other nearby towns, including Ennery,
Gros Morne, L'Estere, Anse Rouge, Petite Riviere
de l'Artibonite and Trou du Nord, according to the Haitian Press
Network, a local news service.
Attackers set fire to the police stations of Gonaives, St. Marc and Trou du
Nord. In St. Marc, the courthouse also was gutted
by flames.
One 22-year-old bystander in St. Marc, David Saint-Louis, was wounded by a
gunshot in the chest Sunday and said it was a
police officer -- in civilian clothing but wearing a badge -- who
fired at him near a barricade.
A number of people in both Gonaives and St. Marc said they formed
neighborhood committees to aid the militants and keep watch
over their areas.
The recent violence started Thursday when members of the Gonaives
Resistance Front, took control of the Gonaives police
station during a five-hour gunbattle. They set fire to buildings --
including the mayor's house -- and freed more than 100 prisoners from
the city jail. Those clashes left at least seven dead and 20
injured.
The Gonaives Resistance Front used to be allied with Aristide. But it
turned against him last year and changed its name
from the "Cannibal Army," accusing the government of killing its
leader Amiot Metayer to keep him from releasing damaging information
about Aristide. The government denies it.
Some gunmen in Gonaives wore the camouflage pants and helmets of Haiti's
disbanded army. The army ousted Aristide in 1991
during his first term. He was restored in a 1994 U.S. invasion and
then disbanded the army, replacing it with a new civilian police
force.
rodneyc..
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