"Anti-Aristide Revolt Spreads to Other Haitian Cities"

It appears that the coup planners are in full bore. Does anyone else notice 
the hands seem to move like those of George Soros?

Macdonald
--
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-haiti.html
By REUTERS

Published: February 8, 2004
Filed at 9:41 p.m. ET

SAINT MARC, Haiti (Reuters) - Embattled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide faced his most serious challenge in months of anti-government 
protests on Sunday as an armed revolt spread 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 travelers to and from Gonaives. Cars could not 
pass the barricades made of vehicle carcasses, felled trees, boulders and 
smoldering 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 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.

Haitian Prime Minister Yvon Neptune on Sunday accused the opposition of 
fomenting a coup d'etat.

``It is not the government that is organizing the violence,'' he told local 
broadcast media.

POLICE STATION WRECKED

The main police station in Saint Marc was a rubble-strewn, smoking ruin on 
Sunday. The neighboring 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 officers died in a failed counterattack on Saturday. 
A police source said two had died, but journalists on Saturday counted at 
least four police corpses.

Micha Gaillard, spokesman for opposition group Democratic Convergence, said 
Aristide only had himself to blame for Gonaives as he had initially armed 
the Cannibal Army.

``Now the longer he stays in power the greater the risk of civil war, with 
all its consequences of boat people,'' he said.

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.





-- 
Macdonald Stainsby
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/rad-green
In the contradiction lies the hope
		--Brecht.


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