8417: Radio Haiti Inter: Senator Toussaint's supporters block road, denounce plot against him (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Max Blanchet <maxblanchet@worldnet.att.net>

Haiti: Senator Toussaint's supporters block road, denounce plot against him
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Jun 22, 2001

Text of report by Grand-Goave correspondent Gilman Saint-Fort broadcast by
Haitian Haiti-Inter radio on 21 June

Supporters of Senator Toussaint, members of the organization Committee for
Solidarity With Dany Toussaint [Creole: Komite Solidarite ak Dany Toussaint,
Kosolda], blocked National Road No 2 in Grand-Goave yesterday morning.
According to their statements, the demonstrators wanted to denounce a plot
hatched within the Lavalas Family [FL] to accuse the senator of the West.
Thereafter, the Grand-Goave police prevented a demonstration by members of
Kosolda who gathered in the town's public square. It should be pointed out
that graffiti observed on walls in Grand-Goave denounce a plot against Dany
Toussaint [seen as] president for 2006. Gilman Saint-Fort filed the
following report:

[Saint-Fort - recording] The Grand-Goave police dispersed a demonstration
that the Grand-Goave branch of Kosolda was staging during the morning of
Wednesday 20 June. The purpose of this movement, according to members of
Kosolda, is to express their solidarity with Toussaint, who is accused in
the investigation of the murders of Radio Haiti Director [Jean Leopold]
Dominique and of Jean-Claude Louissaint, the caretaker of the radio station
[who were killed on 3 April 2000].

The demonstrators, who began to gather in the public square of Grand-Goave,
did not have time to go down to the streets because policemen from the
Grand-Goave Police Station intervened, beating the demonstrators with
truncheons and forcing everybody to go home.

Toussaint's supporters in Grand-Goave say the plot to have the senator
arrested comes directly from the Lavalas Family. Members of Kosolda in
Grand-Goave say they have decided to mobilize in order to prevent this plot
from being carried out. Toussaint's partisans, who said that they were in
combatant mood, blocked National Road No 2 for a long time early in the
morning of Wednesday 20 June.

Radio Haiti observed that many barricades were burning in the middle of the
town. It should be pointed out that many slogans on many walls in
Grand-Goave say: Down with the plot against Dany Toussaint! Up with
Toussaint, president for 2006. Do not touch him.

Source: Radio Haiti-Inter, Port-au-Prince, in French 1230 gmt 21 Jun 01

/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC