13425: Chamberlain posts news item: Haitian prison escapee leads anti-government march (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 22 (Reuters) - An opponent of Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide who recently escaped from prison led
several hundred supporters in a march in a provincial city on Tuesday,
private Radio Metropole reported.
     Jean Tatoune, convicted and sentenced to life in prison for his role
in a 1994 massacre of Aristide supporters in the city, said the march in
Gonaives was designed to keep pressure on Aristide until he resigned.
     "We're going to keep the pressure on and we will paralyze Gonaives,
until Aristide goes and we have new elections," Tatoune told Metropole.
Police did not try to block the march.
     Tatoune was freed from the Gonaives penitentiary on Aug. 2 along with
150 other prisoners when supporters of Amiot Metayer, a local gang leader
and one-time Aristide supporter, attacked the jail with automatic weapons
and a bulldozer, bringing down the prison wall.
     Following the escape, the city was gripped by three days of
anti-government rioting as Metayer, who had been detained on charges that
he had organized the burning of homes belonging to supporters of a rival
gang leader, called for Aristide's ouster.
     Metayer has since muted his calls for rebellion pending a judicial
review of his case. Tatoune was seen parading through the streets of
Gonaives and embracing Metayer after the jailbreak.
     Police initially tried to catch some of the escapees but the effort
has fallen off in recent weeks.
     Gonaives, which is 60 miles (100 km) from Port-au-Prince, has
historically been a center of hostile feelings toward the governments in
the capital of the Caribbean nation.
     Aristide began his second term as president of the poorest country in
the Americas in January 2001 after elections boycotted by the main
opposition group because of a political dispute.
     Aristide has since been locked in a dispute with the Democratic
Convergence opposition coalition over the results of May 2000 legislative
elections, which his opponents say were biased to favor Aristide's Lavalas
Family party.
     The deadlock has stalled over $500 million in international aid.