17556: (Hermantin)Sunsentinel-Police, Aristide backers attack protesters in capital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Police, Aristide backers attack protesters in capital



By Jane Regan
Special Correspondent

December 18, 2003

PORT-AU-PRINCE · Police clashed with protesters calling for President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide's resignation Wednesday, injuring at least a
half-dozen people.

Tensions escalated in Haiti's capital, as protesters were attacked by police
and Aristide supporters wielding machetes, clubs and broken bottles.

At least one student, Lumano Antoine, was shot, said Charles Baker, vice
president of the Haitian Association of Industrialists, one of the
organizations that backed the student-led march.

"Today their intention was not to simply scare people," he said. "Today
their intention was to injure and kill."

Students and organizations behind the marches said the protests are part of
an "unending mobilization" against Aristide, elected in controversial
polling three years ago. They accuse the government of corruption,
intolerance and rights violations.

"He must go! He must go!" several hundred students and others shouted as
they headed toward downtown Port-au-Prince on Wednesday.

Heavily armed police waited at march gathering places and intersections.
They fired automatic weapons into the air and repeatedly gassed protesters.
Demonstrators also were attacked by truckloads of armed civilians, sometimes
as police patrols looked on.

Riding in two vehicles -- a state telephone truck and a van covered with
Aristide posters -- the men waved pistols, a rifle and clubs in the air and
shot at random. Hooting and shouting, "We'll celebrate 2004 with Aristide!
Five years!" the armed men roared their vehicles up and down side streets.
In Haiti, the presidential term is five years.

`Daily threats' condemned

"I was trying to march with the students, to support them," said Eddy Jeune,
40, an accountant and a founder of the Democratic Initiative Committee,
which supported Aristide during his first candidacy for president in 1990.

Jeune had a deep gash from a broken bottle used on him while others held him
by the collar, he said.

"But I'm not a victim of the pro-Aristide thugs," Jeune said. "I am a victim
of Aristide."

At least six people also were arrested, said lawyer Delia Lemaire and people
who saw them hustled into police vehicles. Lemaire and about a dozen other
lawyers this week formed an emergency legal team to help police victims.
"It's the least we can do," she said.

Police spokesmen were not available for comment. But last weekend, Prime
Minister Yvon Neptune issued a stern warning strictly curtailing
demonstrations. Neptune said people had to give their names, addresses and
the march objectives.

Port-au-Prince also awoke to find three gas stations had been partially
torched by armed arsonists. The attacks came as leaflets started to appear
in wealthier neighborhoods stating: "Whatever happens to Aristide, we'll
kill them, we'll burn them! Houses, stores, cars."

The Association of Haitian Gas Products Distributors condemned the
"terrorist attacks" against businesses and other sectors of society and the
"daily threats to people and their property coming from high-level state
officials." In recent weeks, elected officials have repeatedly threatened
members of the opposition, radio stations and others.

Speaking to supporters and members of his political party on Tuesday,
Aristide accused the opposition of sullying the image of his Lavalas Family
party.

"Sometimes they put on Lavalas T-shirts so they can break, kill and burn,"
he said. "Lavalas is clean, Lavalas is beautiful."

Protests in other cities

Anti-government demonstrators also were blocked or attacked by police and
Aristide supporters in several other Haitian cities.

In the southern city of Jacmel, marchers said they were hit by rocks, and in
St. Marc, a small port city two hours north of the capital, police broke up
a march with tear gas and by shooting firearms into the air.

A pro-Aristide group called Clean Sweep, which had a few armed men in its
ranks, took to the streets afterward and shot into the air to celebrate.
They said they were hunting for the anti-Aristide protesters, according to
the correspondent for Radio Quisqueya, a private station in the capital.
Quisqueya also reported that an anti-government march in Miragoane was
broken up on Tuesday and that unknown vandals torched three state office
buildings in Trou du Nord.
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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