18456: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Aristide loyalists take up arms to fight rebels in Cap H (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Wed, Feb. 11, 2004

HAITI
Aristide loyalists take up arms to fight rebels in Cap Haitien
Aristide supporters vow to protect Cap Haitien residents amid an uprising,
but rebels still control several areas and the U.S. does not plan to
intervene.
BY TRENTON DANIEL
tdaniel@herald.com

ST. MARC, Haiti -- Militants loyal to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
fought back Tuesday against armed bands that seized a dozen towns to demand
his resignation, as the Bush administration said it had no plans to
intervene in the bloody violence racking the hemisphere's poorest nation.

Aristide supporters in the country's second-largest city, Cap Haitien on the
northern coast, brandished pistols and rifles as they patrolled streets and
blocked roads to prevent the spree of violence and looting from spreading
there, according to radio reports.

But antigovernment militants kept their grip on at least parts of several
other towns, with both sides blocking so many roads that the United Nations
warned of a potential food and fuel crisis if the unrest continues.

In Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the Bush
administration hopes ''the ebb and flow down there will stay below a certain
threshold'' and added, ``We have no plans to do anything.''

But the State Department authorized the departure of family members and
nonessential employees of the U.S. Embassy in Haiti, banned its diplomats
from going outside the capital city of Port-au-Prince, which has remained
largely peaceful throughout the past week, and urged U.S. citizens to leave.

Spokesman Richard Boucher condemned the violence on both sides but urged
Aristide to take steps to end the 3-year-old crisis, sparked by legislative
elections in 2000 won by his Lavalas Family Party but disputed as fraudulent
by the opposition.

''There has been all together too much violence in Haiti's history,''
Boucher said in Washington. ``We are pushing very hard . . . for all the
parties to take steps to calm the situation.''

RESIGNATION QUESTION

Boucher demurred, however, when asked whether the embattled Aristide should
resign. ''We recognize that reaching a political settlement will require
some fairly thorough changes in the way Haiti is governed and how the
security situation is maintained,'' he said.

A Bush administration official later said Washington favors a strictly
''democratic and constitutional'' solution that could, at least technically,
include Aristide's resignation. ''But that would be up to Aristide,'' he
added.

Haitian government officials dismissed the rebellion, which has claimed more
than 40 lives since it erupted Thursday, and said they had taken back
several of the towns initially overtaken by the gunmen, including the
western port of St. Marc.

In St. Marc, a dirt-poor town hit by fighting and looting Sunday,
motorcyclists and pedestrians moved relatively freely through the narrow
streets, and curbside vendors opened their shops as security forces, some
wearing black ski masks, kept watch.

But members of an anti-Aristide group, some of them cradling shotguns, still
controlled part of the city's east side Tuesday from behind barricades made
from old cars, logs and other debris.

''The government doesn't work and they're filled with thugs,'' said Ricot
St. Louis, 27, leader of the community group Ramiccos. ``We're obligated to
stay vigilant.''

St. Louis said that despite the country's long history of bloodshed it
couldn't wait for Aristide's term to end in 2006. He said too many people
were dying at his expense and called for new elections if and when the
president resigns.

Members of Aristide's Lavalas Family claimed they controlled the city and
called their opponents ''gangsters'' and ``thieves.''

''We're mobilizing for the president to finish his five-year mandate,'' said
Amanus Maette, 34.

Aristide -- elected in 1991, toppled by a military coup in 1992, reinstated
by U.S. troops in 1994 and reelected in 2001 -- has vowed repeatedly that he
will not step down.

ALONG BORDER

In the neighboring Dominican Republic, the military increased its patrols
along the border and residents reported that sporadic gunfire had been heard
in the Haitian city of Ouanaminthe, across from Dajabón. But the crossings
at Dajabón in the north and Jimaní in the south remained open.

Meanwhile, Winter Etienne, the spokesman for the armed group that controls
Gonaives, issued an e-mail calling on all Haitians to support the removal of
the ``Lavalas tyranny and dictatorship.''

Etienne claimed the National Liberation and Reconstruction Front, once a
thuggish pro-Aristide gang known as the Cannibal Army, had also
''liberated'' 17 other cities and towns.

''There is so much confusion, and I'm having a hard time because I lost a
cousin,'' said Miriam Deneus, 26, a St. Marc resident whose cousin was shot
dead as demonstrators clashed with police in front of her home on Sunday.

Herald staff writers Jacqueline Charles and Nancy San Martin contributed to
this report.

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