16878: (Bellegarde-Smith) Gang Rule in Haitian Slums (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>

Haiti: Burning Slum Signals Gang Rule
By Jane Regan

GONAIVES, Sep. 30 (IPS/GIN) -- "Down with Aristide! Down with Aristide! We
don't want him any more!" screamed the street vendor as she hurried through
the black billows of smoke rising from a pile of flaming tires, her tattered
sandals crunching on the broken glass and twisted metal of the freshly built
barricade.

Around her, the marketplace was panicked. People rushed to gather their wares.
For the fifth day in a row Sep. 27, demonstrators were shutting down this
dusty port town.

It might be any poor Latin American country. But the residents of the seaside
slum of Raboteau, where the average person hacks out a life on less than one
dollar a day, were not marching for lower taxes or more electricity or public
schools. They were protesting the death of local strongman and pro-government
activist Amiot 'Cuban' Métayer.

And although Métayer's faithful support of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
and his Lavalas Family party almost got him killed, his followers blame that
same Aristide for the brutal murder and vow to protest until the president
steps down.

The story behind Métayer's murder and Raboteau's revolt offers a glimpse at an
ugly underbelly of Lavalas politics, a fragile formula where gangs rule the
streets.

Métayer was a hero to many of his neighbors in this ramshackle collection of
shacks and concrete houses squeezed between glistening open sewers and a dirty
beach used as a toilet.

He led a feisty pro-Aristide resistance during the 1991-1994 coup that
overthrew the current president and doled out jobs through the port where his
brother Buter Métayer is assistant director. He could also be counted on to
provide pro-government demonstrations on command.

But Métayer was also possibly Haiti's "Most Wanted" ever since his partisans
-- called the "Cannibal Army" -- busted him out of prison on Aug. 2, 2002 by
driving a bulldozer through a wall, torching the courthouse and city hall
along the way. (Métayer had been arrested for arson.)

Soon after, no less than the Organization of American States (OAS), the U.S.
administration, and rights groups were demanding his re-arrest for the
lynching of an opposition party member on Dec. 17, 2001.

That day, armed men attacked the National Palace. Lavalas called it a coup
attempt; the opposition said it was theatrics rigged to allow for a wave of
anti-opposition repression unleashed across the country.

According to the OAS, Métayer was behind the lynching.

Métayer, who turned against the president for a few days in 2002, said
Aristide's National Palace was behind it. Officials told him and his "Army" to
roll out of Raboteau and attack the opposition, he argued.

Métayer was never arrested -- the president, prime minister, judges and police
all refused to have him picked up -- and now he never will be.

On Sep. 21, the burly Métayer left his seaside stronghold with a well-known
former government employee and frequent visitor to the National Palace. The
next day, his bullet-ridden body -- the face hacked off -- was found an hour
away.

Demonstrators have occupied the streets ever since, chanting anti-Aristide
slogans, scrawling graffiti and piling up massive barricades. (Sunday was a
day off.)

After five days of protests, including one where marchers fired on police
headquarters, one man is dead and at least a dozen, one policeman and the
others protestors or bystanders, injured. A half-dozen weapons have been
seized and a dozen young men arrested.

"We control the city," said Haitian National Police Commissaire Camille
Marcellus, dressed in military gear, Sep. 27. His men wore black uniforms,
helmets and hoods and patrol with automatic weapons. "They (protesters) do
what they want in their neighborhood but they can't come downtown."

But Marcellus also said that police feel abandoned by the rest of the
government. The civil government: judges, the "delegate" (representative of
the executive) and the mayor are nowhere to be seen.

And until Sep. 28 at least, Raboteau remained unconquered territory,
barricades blocking all entrances, Métayer's replacement -- his little brother
-- ruling inside.

"I always knew 'Cuban' would die but I never thought Aristide would kill him.
It's treason," said Buter Métayer as he sat on the porch of his dead brother's
neat two-story pink house that towers above the grey and dirty cage-like homes
on either side.

"Aristide had to get rid of 'Cuban' to make the OAS happy. But they wanted him
arrested, not killed. If he had appeared before a judge, he would have had to
tell the truth about the Palace," he said, the bitterness palpable on his
lips.

Many foreign governments and the World Bank, who have withheld support from
the government ever since disputed 2001 parliamentary elections, are demanding
democratic reforms, disarmament of gangs and improvements in the poor human
rights situation before resuming aid and loans.

"I see now that this can happen to any Lavalas militant," Buter continued. "We
won't stop our movement until Aristide steps down."

The hundreds of men, women and children crowded around the house listening to
the interview broke into cheers and sang, "Tell George Bush Aristide fell into
shit!", beating out the rhythm on overturned plastic buckets.

Métayer's "Cannibal Army" is really not much more than a frustrated rabble,
albeit with a few guns, that rolled out of the slum whenever the opposition
tried to organize demonstration. But its manoeuvres gave results.

The "Army" shot at and broke up student protests, attacked opposition marches
with whips, clubs and bottles, and held rowdy demonstrations in front of the
offices of whichever public official Métayer did not like.

What Métayer called "popular pressure" drove two judges and a half-dozen
journalists into exile and a Delegate back to the capital. (She "resigned".)
The arson charges were also dropped.

The "Army" is also not the only pro-Palace "street heat" around. While the
Aristide government can still count on support from peasants in some parts of
the country, the cities are largely lost.

"Today's regime, the Lavalas Family, essentially depends on different gangs
around the country," said Jean Alix René, a history professor at the state
university and the author of a recent book on the Aristide phenomenon called
'The Populist Seduction'.

"And when the politicians are finished using them, they throw them away."

Gang leaders mobilize people for pro-government rallies and in return might
provide to access to officials, jobs, loans, handouts and cherished spots at
public schools. Last week, one marched into a police station in the capital
and engineered the release of a number of prisoners.

The gangs are part of the Lavalas political machine. But that machine is
fragile.

"If that house of cards tumbles, there's no telling what will happen," René
said.

Secretary of State for Communication Mario Dupuy rejects the label "gangs",
calling the groups "popular organizations". The accusations against the
government are "ridiculous", he adds.

"It could be the opposition killed Métayer. After all, who profits from the
crime?" Dupuy said from his office in the capital as mobs were marching in
Gonaives. "You see, the opposition's real goal is to destroy the popular
organizations because they don't want poor people to organize."

Whoever ordered Métayer's face hacked off, Raboteau suspects the Palace, and
its mobs have taken to yelling "Down with!" instead of "Long live!"