18326: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Unrest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHAEL NORTON

   GONAIVES, Feb 7 (AP) -- Police reinforcements fought bloody battles with
gunmen as they tried to retake Haiti's fourth-largest city Saturday from
rebels who seized it two days earlier in a challenge to President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
   At least three police were killed, and crowds mutilated the corpses. One
body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete. A
woman cut off the officer's ear.
   Another policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents
dropped a large rock on his corpse.
   Rebels said they killed 14 police officers, Haitian radio stations
reported; but the claim could not be confirmed.
   The uprising appeared to be spreading. Armed Aristide opponents seized
the police station in the west coast town of St. Marc on Saturday, firing
into the air and chasing police away, private Radio Kiskeya reported.
   Militants also have attacked police stations and forced out police in at
least five small towns near Gonaives, Haitian radio reports said. Judge
Walter Pierre told private Radio Ginen that armed men were occupying the
police station in the town of Anse Rouge on Saturday and had confiscated
weapons.
   The rebellion had not yet reached Port-au-Prince, the capital, where
throngs of government supporters marched Saturday to mark the third
anniversary of Aristide's second inauguration.
   Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party swept flawed
legislative elections in 2000. The opposition refuses to join in any new
vote unless Aristide resigns, which he refuses to do before his term ends
in 2006.
   At least 61 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since
mid-September in clashes between police, government opponents and Aristide
supporters.
   An armed group known as the Gonaives Resistance Front drove police from
Gonaives' police station during a five-hour gunbattle on Thursday, then
torched the station and other buildings. At least seven people were killed
and 20 injured.
   About 150 police re-entered Gonaives Saturday morning, ignoring a hail
of rocks from protesters and waging gunbattles with armed rebels who hid on
side streets and crouched in doorways.
   "I'm not a terrorist. I am fighting for the Haitian people," militant
leader Wilfort Ferdinand, 27, said from a second-floor balcony, holding an
M-16 rifle.
   It was unclear how many gunmen were fighting, but on Friday thousands of
protesters marched outside Gonaives, vowing to repel any attempt to retake
the city, which with its suburbs encompasses about 200,000 people.
   Some gunmen wore the camouflage pants of Haiti's disbanded army, which
Aristide eliminated in 1995.
   "I am ready to lay down my weapons as soon as Aristide leaves. Gonaives
today is in the hands of the Resistance," Ferdinand said. "We are few in
number but we have the support of the people."
   The group is not asking for money or weapons, only international help in
removing Aristide, he said. Ferdinand, known by the nickname Ti-Wil, said
Aristide once gave his group weapons to crush the opposition.
   The Gonaives Resistance Front used to be allied with Aristide. But the
gang turned against Aristide last year and changed its name from the
"Cannibal Army," accusing the government of killing its leader Amiot
Metayer to keep him from releasing damaging information about Aristide. The
government denies it.
   The U.S. Embassy issued a statement Friday saying it "categorically
rejects all violence."
   A number of people in Gonaives, meanwhile, said they support the
militants. Some said they formed neighborhood committees to aid the
militants and questioned visitors.
   "We have placed our trust in the Gonaives Resistance Front. If the
police counterattack, they'll be met with stiff resistance," said Jean
Roland, 23.
   Police set up a headquarters in a school and returned to the police
station where looters took guns Friday.
   The gunmen attacked symbols of Aristide's authority on Thursday, freeing
prisoners and burning the mayor's home, businesses he owned and another
office in Gonaives, 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.
   The army ousted Aristide in 1991 during his first term. He was restored
in a 1994 U.S. invasion and then disbanded the army.
   Former soldiers have been blamed for a series of attacks in the past
year that killed at least 25 people in the Central Plateau, east of
Gonaives.
   Haiti's national security adviser, Dany Fabien, on Friday called the
Gonaives attack "the bourgeoisie against the people." He said police would
respond and said that "the last word belongs to the people."
   Police, meanwhile, arrested human rights activist Ketly Julien and three
others in the capital Friday, charging them with plotting a coup. The
others included former provincial police chief Edouard Petithomme and his
wife Rosemarie, a Haitian-American who is a U.S. citizen. They have denied
the charges.