12633: Article: Haiti Protesters Take Over City (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <dgcraig@att.net>


Haiti Protesters Take Over City
August 6, 2002
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:35 a.m. ET

GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) -- Calling for an uprising against
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thousands of protesters,
some armed, hurled stones at outnumbered Haitian police and
blocked streets with flaming tires.

"We're going to feed Aristide to the fire!" people once
loyal to the former slum priest yelled Monday night,
standing near a smoldering barricade in the western port of
Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city.

Demonstrators spoke bitterly against the president,
accusing him of orchestrating an attack in December that
ultimately left 10 people dead, saying he staged the
apparent coup himself as an excuse to silence the
opposition.

"He betrayed us," said Jean Simeon, a former supporter
who was among the protesters Monday.

"Aristide sent messengers at midnight December 16th to
order us to defend him against the coup d'etat," said
Simeon, a 54-year-old carpenter. "We were told to crush
the opposition."

Aristide has claimed the Dec. 17 attack was aimed at
overthrowing his government and assassinating him. But a
report by the Organization of American States concluded
that there was no coup.

The report, released in July after a three-month
investigation, did not go so far as to back opposition
claims that the attack was staged by the government to
clamp down on dissent. But it charged that government
officials and Aristide's party armed militants who
plundered and burned the offices and homes of opposition
leaders in a spate of attacks that followed.

Haiti's government and opposition are embroiled in a
two-year dispute over flawed legislative elections in 2000.
The stalemate is holding up hundreds of millions of dollars
in foreign aid for the impoverished Caribbean nation of 8
million people.

In a sign of growing lawlessness, police in Gonaives have
been unable to quell violence that began Friday when armed
supporters of a formerly pro-Aristide street gang crashed a
stolen tractor into a prison, freeing 159 inmates.

About two dozen riot police fired tear gas in a futile
battle against thousands of stone-throwing demonstrators
Monday, but were forced to retreat, said reporter
Jean-Claude Noel of independent Radio Vision 2000. No
injuries were reported.

"Today the people have taken possession of Gonaives,"
said protest leader Jean Tatoune, who was among the
prisoners who escaped Friday. ``Aristide has to go.''

Tatoune, 44, was an important figure in the popular
uprising that forced dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier into
exile in 1986. A longtime Aristide opponent, Tatoune had
been serving a life sentence for involvement in the 1994
killings of at least 15 Aristide supporters in Gonaives.

After the prison break, the gunmen set fire to the city
hall and courthouse, demolishing both buildings. Only three
escaped convicts were captured.

"We are fighting to save the country," said Amiot
Metayer, an escaped inmate who was arrested for allegedly
burning down opposition homes Dec. 17. The jail break was
orchestrated by Metayar's supporters, a gang that calls
itself the Cannibal Army. He made his remarks on Radio
Metropole.

Metayar's gang wants Aristide's administration to be
replaced by an interim government, new elections and higher
wages for police and other state workers. Government
officials reject the demands.

Aristide's party played down the threat in Gonaives.

"It is a small group of armed men that the police should deal
with. One should not dramatize," party spokesman Jonas
Petit said.

The army in neighboring Dominican Republic, which shares an
island with Haiti, has reinforced security along the border
to keep out escaped prisoners.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Haiti-Chaos.html?ex=1029657065&ei=1&en=ac220fc23857b1bf
Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company