13837: (Chamberlain) Aristide foes to step up protests in Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Opponents stepped up the
pressure on Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Wednesday, saying
they plan to hold continuous protests across the troubled Caribbean nation
until he resigns.
     As thousands of students marched in the northern city of Cap Haitien,
one of Aristide's key political foes, former Port-au-Prince Mayor Evans
Paul, announced in the capital that opposition parties will begin a new
round of large demonstrations on Thursday.
     "We must combat and prevent the establishment of an Aristide
dictatorship in Haiti," said Paul, secretary general of the Konvansyon
Inite Demokratik party, which is associated with the opposition coalition
Democratic Convergence.
     "We will continue with our peaceful national mobilization until we
free the country from Lavalas control," he said
     Aristide, whose Lavalas Family party controls Parliament, has faced
increasingly violent demonstrations in the past two weeks over Haiti's
faltering economy and perceptions that his government is interfering in the
school system. His supporters have mounted large and noisy
counter-demonstrations.
     The protest on Wednesday in Cap Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city,
echoed one Nov. 17 in which an estimated 10,000 people took part, private
Radio Vision 2000 reported.
     Protests were also reported on Wednesday in the provincial cities of
Petit Goave and Gonaives, where eight people have been shot in political
violence since Monday.
     On Tuesday, unidentified gunmen in Gonaives fired on a marked car
belonging to the Organization of American States, local media said. No one
was reported injured.
     The OAS is trying to broker a political truce in Haiti and this week
issued a statement criticizing Aristide's government for its handling of
the recent demonstrations.
     "The acts are provocations by the opposition," said Mario Dupuy,
secretary of state for communications. "We are committed to tracking down
those responsible for violence."
     A former Roman Catholic priest who rallied Haiti's poor masses to
overthrow a 30-year dictatorship in the mid-1980s, Aristide has been
hamstrung since he took office in February 2001 by a dispute with
Democratic Convergence over contested May 2000 legislative elections.
     The deadlock has stalled over $500 million in desperately needed aid
to 8 million people in Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas. The
local currency has lost 40 percent of its value and inflation is up 16
percent in the last year.
     Paul said anti-government protests would be held Thursday in Gonaives,
Friday in the central city of Saint Marc and on Tuesday in Petit Goave.
     The Gonaives and Petit Goave rallies will commemorate, respectively,
the shootings of three schoolchildren by the Haitian army during the
dictatorship of the Duvalier family in 1985 and the mob murder of Petit
Goave journalist Brignol Lindor in December 2001.