14414: Edouard- news- Miami Herald 1/11/03 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Felix Edouard <loveayiti@hotmail.com>


Articles are below:

I really love the spin on the list. One article and two opinion pieces on
Haiti appeared in the Miami Herald on Saturday. "Only" the pro-Aristide
opinion piece was posted by the official government external media person
(sorry..Michele) to the list. The second opinion piece appeared directly
next to the opinion piece by David Murdock where he stated that mysterious
men in green gave him a lecture on Aristide and the military on an open
road. I assume these are the same men  who committed the "coup" in December
2001.

Also could someone please tell me what exactly is AHP? Is it a government
funded propaganda machine or an independant news agency? If it is funded and
run by the government should it not indentify itself as such? Anything else
is misleading.

Nevertheless, here are the "other" articles from the Miami Herald


Posted on Sat, Jan. 11, 2003

Haitians battle at fuel price protest
BY JANE REGAN
Special to The Herald

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Fifteen people were injured Friday in skirmishes provoked
when hundreds of government supporters throwing rocks and bottles and
wielding clubs attacked opposition marchers protesting recent hikes in fuel
prices.

Police spokesman Jean Dady Simeon said that at least one person received a
gunshot wound, but he could not confirm the victim's name.

Simeon and officials at the State University Hospital said that both pro-
and anti-government marchers were injured, while members of each camp
accused the other of committing the violence.

Journalists at the scene of the clashes, however, said most of the violence
originated from groups carrying posters and photos of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

''Look what happens when democrats try to hold a peaceful march,'' said
Montes Joseph, head of the Independent Inter-Union Movement of Haiti. ``We
did not have guns. The police were there, they saw everything.''

Joseph said intimidation from police and Aristide supporters would not stop
their movement.

He and two other union members were held by police for six hours on Thursday
night after police found fliers protesting high gas prices in his vehicle.
They were eventually released but on Friday a fourth union member was
arrested, he said.

''Those fliers are an exercise of my constitutional right,'' he said.

Organized by public transportation drivers' unions, other unions and a
coalition of opposition political parties, Friday's protest march was a
followed a national strike that paralyzed the country Tuesday.

The Jan. 1 increase in fuel costs has sent the prices of food and other
necessities sharply higher in the hemisphere's poorest country.

Joseph said the unions changed their original march route after scores of
Aristide supporters filled an intersection at the southern entrance to the
capital early Friday.

Brandishing Aristide posters, they screamed into journalists' microphones,
''Gas prices are high because gas companies are hoarding fuel!'' When they
clashed with the protest march, one of the anti-government marchers cried
into his megaphone: ``Police! Do your duty! Arrest the thugs!''

Dozens of police accompanying the march took cover behind their vehicles. As
they shot automatic weapons into the air, a hail of rocks injured radio
journalist Rony Mathieu.

''The police didn't stop the government thugs,'' said Evans Paul, a member
of the Democratic Convergence opposition coalition.



Posted on Sat, Jan. 11, 2003
Anti-Aristide sentiment fuels turmoil in Haiti


Re Irwin P. Stotzky's Jan. 2 Otherviews column, Haiti's problem isn't
Aristide: President Aristide is a corrupt leader. Those who disagree should
ask the people on the streets of Port-au-Prince.
The international community suspended aid because Aristide refused to make
concessions about anti-democratic behavior. When thousands of people
demonstrated in Cap Haitian, it was clear that the country could no longer
give in to Aristide's antics.
These people have suffered a lot; they must have a chance to pursue
democracy. If the international aid resumes, it would only help create an
Aristide dictatorship. He is the problem. For Haitians to breathe peace and
live in a democracy, he must go.
GREGOIRE EUGENE







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