8989: Opposition leader accuses mayor of planning attack on demonstrators (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

 Haiti: Opposition leader accuses mayor of planning attack on demonstrators
BBC Monitoring Service - United Kingdom; Aug 30, 2001
Text of report by Haitian Metropole radio on 30 August; passages within
double oblique strokes in Creole
[Announcer] Yesterday some individuals, who claimed to be pro-Lavalas
partisans, nipped in the bud an anti-Lavalas demonstration that was being
held by the Haitian Democratic Party [Pademh] leader. The Lavalas
supporters, most of whom were armed with guns, threw stones at the Pademh
demonstrators who were getting ready to hold a peaceful march to protest
against the Lavalas regime. Jean Numa Goudou reports the following:
[Goudou - recording] One of the well known Pademh members, Joel, was taking
care of the signs that said Down With Aristide, etc. Opposite him, about 10
Lavalas partisans were preparing the counter-attack in Place Boyer. The
Lavalas side started stoning the Pademh demonstrators, who retaliated in
kind. Then tension rose in the Lavalas group. Things went downhill in
Petion-Ville. Stones were thrown from all directions. Passers-by had to flee
the area.
[Unidentified person] //They threw stones at me and I almost got killed.
It's only one person who is stoning the people and the police are there and
do nothing to stop him. It's not fair.//
[Goudou] Lavalas partisans soon announced that they took control of things
in Petion-Ville.
[Lavalas partisan] //We members of the Lavalas Family in Petion-Ville say
today that the opposition cannot prevent the people's fight. For, if the
country is not making progress today it is because of people like Claire
Lydie Parent, Dominique Serant...//
[Goudou] Later on, a pick-up truck from the Public Works Ministry arrived
full of Lavalas partisans who then chased away the Pademh demonstrators.
They came back with one of the Pademh leaders covered with blood.
[Lavalas partisans] [Words indistinct]
[Goudou] Leader Joel was taken to the police station where three of his
colleagues were detained, according to the Petion-Ville police
superintendent. Four people in all were detained at the police station.
Supporters of Parent, who initiated the demonstration, left. The former
Petion-Ville mayor [Parent] pointed to the current mayor of Petion-Ville and
announced that legal action will be taken against Mayor Sully Guerrier and
his partisans.
[Parent] //We are going to prosecute the Lavalas party, because things are
impossible in this country. A meeting took place at city hall and they
planned the action then that they were going to take. They did exactly what
they planned to do.//
[Announcer] We have learned that the Pademh militants who were arrested
yesterday morning were released in the late afternoon. [End of recording]
Source: Radio Metropole, Port-au-Prince, in French 1145 gmt 30 Aug 01
/BBC Monitoring/ © BBC.