18473: (Chamberlain) Haiti militia, police mop up rebel remnants (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Christie

     SAINT MARC, Haiti, Feb 11 (Reuters) - Supporters of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide shot dead at least three people in the town of Saint
Marc on Wednesday as they joined balaclava-clad police in mopping up
remnants of an armed revolt, witnesses said.
     Gunfire rattled out and a thick plume of smoke rose over slum
tenements in the coastal city 65 miles (105 km) from the capital, where
rebels drove out the police force on Saturday. Authorities took back all
but two neighborhoods of the town on Monday.
     Residents said three people were killed by supporters of Aristide's
ruling Lavalas Family party, who formed a band called "Baleouze" -- Creole
for "sweep-up" -- and began to comb through the remaining rebel areas in
what appeared to be a wave of retribution.
     A distraught girl called Mina said militia entered her home, dragged
away three relatives and made them lie on the ground.
     "They shot them in the head and then took the bodies away," she said.
     Bullet cartridges littered the dust outside homes that had been
trashed in the hunt for weapons or foes. Children picked through the piles
of clothes and broken appliances left behind.
     The armed revolt began last week in Gonaives, the country's
fourth-largest city and the birthplace of its independence from France 200
years ago, when a gang that once supported Aristide attacked police,
capping months of anti-government protests.
     The revolt spread and threatened the rule of Aristide, a former Roman
Catholic priest who was once hailed as a champion of Haiti's fledgling
democracy but is now accused by his opponents of civil rights abuses and
political thuggery.
     Around 40 people have been killed in the violence, and the United
Nations said up to 268,000 people could go hungry in a "major humanitarian
crisis" if blocked roads were not opened up.
     An official with an aid organization said the U.S. State Department
briefed nongovernmental groups on plans to accommodate up to 50,000
Haitians at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, if the violence
triggered an exodus of illegal immigrants.
     Haitian police and government supporters began to fight back on Monday
and took back at least two towns, Saint Marc and Grand Goave. On Tuesday,
radio reports said Aristide backers attacked opponents in several areas,
including the impoverished Caribbean country's second city, Cap-Haitien in
the north.
     In Saint Marc, a man belonging to the militia who called himself
Marckunt, said: "The police came to reinforce us against the terrorists."
     Like other government supporters there, he wore an orange T-shirt and
had a pistol tucked in his waistband. He said 20 homes of government
supporters had been burned while the rebels were in control.
     In Gonaives, a city of 200,000 about 40 miles (65 km) north of Saint
Marc, rebels manned barricades and cruised the garbage-strewn streets on
Wednesday in seized police vehicles.
     Buter Metayer, leader of the armed gang controlling the city, said his
men were not deterred by the setbacks the rebellion had suffered and would
defeat any attack.
     Washington had sharp words on Tuesday for Aristide, who it supported
in 1994 with 20,000 troops after he was ousted in a coup, saying the crisis
could mean Haiti's first democratically elected leader might have to step
down.
     But Aristide said on Wednesday, "I will leave the palace on February
7, 2006."
     "Haiti suffered from 32 coup d'etats. It's too many. We should not
continue to move from one coup d'etat to another one. We have to go from
democratic elections to democratic elections," he told reporters.

  (Additional reporting by Amy Bracken in Port-au-Prince)