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a65: Dec. 17: Miami Herald article (fwd)



From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

(Miami Herald, 19 Dec 01)


Haiti opposition leaders in hiding after palace attack                     


Aristide foes: Coup was a ruse                                             

                                                                           
  
                                                                           

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN                                                        

                                                                           
 
                                                                           
  
  PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Opposition leaders remained in hiding Tuesday after    
  
  supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide responded to a reported
coup 
  attempt a day earlier with a rampage against government opponents.       
  
                                                                       
  The palace was pockmarked with bullet holes, and television broadcasts   
  
  showed scenes of destruction inside the building that resulted from the  
  
  hours long gunfight early Monday morning. The capital, however, was      
  
  surprisingly free of tension Tuesday as shops reopened and the customary 
  
  chaotic traffic returned to the streets.                                 
  
                                                                           
  
  The few opposition leaders available to speak with reporters insisted the
  
  attack on the palace was an elaborate charade designed to establish a    
  
  pretext to crack down on Aristide's opponents.                           
  
                                                                           
  
  ``There is something very strange about this announcement of a coup
d'etat, 
  so strange that nobody understands it,'' said Suzy Castor, wife of       
  
  opposition leader Gerard Pierre Charles. Their home in Petionville was   
  
  among those attacked. ``Everybody is asking themselves, `What coup?' ''  
  
                                                                           
  
  Castor said her husband had been out of the country at a gathering of
party 
  leaders and was due back in Port-au-Prince Monday. But flights were      
  
  canceled and he has not be able to return, she said.                     
  
                                                                           
  
  She is convinced the attack by Aristide supporters was calculated. ``They
  
  came specifically looking for this house. They were armed and they had   
  
  walkie-talkies that they were using to listen to orders.''               
  
                                                                           
  
  At least eight homes and buildings were torched and ransacked in         
  
  Port-au-Prince. A handful more were stormed by mobs across the country. A
  
  full tally of damage has not yet been confirmed, but there is a common   
  
  thread among those structures that were targets: Most were linked with   
  
  Aristide's political opponents.                                          
  
                                                                           
  
  ``The so-called coup d'etat was a masquerade,'' opposition leader Evans  
  
  Paul told The Associated Press. The former Port-au-Prince mayor's party  
  
  headquarters were destroyed Monday -- for the third time in 10 years --
by  
  Aristide supporters.                                                     
  
                                                                           
  
  Aristide was not at the palace early Monday morning, when authorities say
  
  33 heavily armed men shot and killed two police officers and took over
one  
  wing of the building for seven hours before they fled. Two passersby were
  
  shot by fleeing attackers.                                               
  
                                                                           
  
  Aristide, in what he called a ``message of peace'' following the
violence,  
  said Monday: ``We have thwarted the coup, but it's not all over.''       
  
                                                                           
  
  Paul, who was Aristide's campaign manager in 1990 but now is a leader in 
  
  the opposition coalition, pointed to what he called the ``absurdity'' of
33 
  men attacking the palace, which is guarded by hundreds of police
officers.  
                                                                           
  
  He also said it is widely known that Aristide rarely spends the night    
  
  there.                                                                   
  
                                                                           
  
  Authorities said one of the attackers was killed in a gun battle at the  
  
  palace in central Port-au-Prince and a wounded gunman was captured at a  
  
  roadblock near the border with the Dominican Republic. The rest escaped. 
  
                                                                           
  
  Castor said the attack on her home occurred around 9:30 a.m. and lasted
for 
  about three hours, despite the presence of police who had been called to 
  
  the scene. The family had left because word had spread that they were in 
  
  danger.                                                                  
  
                                                                           
  
  A group of about 100, including boys, attacked the two-story property
after 
  tossing Molotov cocktails over a high steel fence. Some had guns. Others 
  
  wielded machetes.                                                        
  
                                                                           
  
  Inside, windows were shattered. Two vehicles blew up in flames. When it
was 
  over, everything was gone, including TV sets, clothes, even beds. Plants 
  
  were chopped in half. Books were reduced to smoldering ashes.            
  
                                                                           
  
  Aristide and the political opposition, the Democratic Convergence, have  
  
  been locked in a yearlong dispute based on accusations of electoral
fraud.  
  The dispute has undermined the legitimacy of Aristide's government in the
  
  view of some international organizations and prevented foreign aid from  
  
  reaching the country.                                                    
  
                                                                           
  
  Castor and others cited the absence of any sign of heightened security on
  
  the streets of the capital as evidence that the events of Monday were    
  
  staged and that the government felt itself under no genuine threat of    
  
  further attack.