18496: (Craig) NYTimes.com Article: Historic Haitian City Squeezed by Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>

Historic Haitian City Squeezed by Uprising
February 12, 2004
By LYDIA POLGREEN

CAP HAITIEN, Haiti, Feb. 11 - By the time the acrid wisps
of smoke reached his nostrils, it was too late for Benjamin
Emmanuel to save anything except himself.

The schoolbooks he used to prepare French lessons for his
students would turn to ash. So would the law books that
each cost a quarter of his monthly salary, a sum he gladly
paid to study a profession that might pay him better.

"I lost everything, even my neckties," he said, fingering
the empty space in his shirt collar. "We tried to put out
the fire with buckets, but there wasn't enough time."

Mr. Emmanuel's house, which was set on fire Tuesday by a
roving band of militiamen loyal to President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide, according to witnesses, was one of dozens of
houses and businesses burned in this city in the past three
days.

The fires, according to leaders of a growing opposition
movement here, are part of an all-out effort by the police
and militias aligned with the Aristide government to remain
in control of the city by terrorizing government opponents
into submission.

The police here deny setting the fires and say armed
Aristide opponents are trying to overrun their precincts
and destabilize the city.

"They are the ones attacking us," said one young policeman
from the capital, Port-au-Prince, who is stationed here.
"We are under siege."

While uprisings rage in a dozen cities, the struggle to
remain in control of Cap Haitien is perhaps the most
important challenge the government has faced so far.

With opposition forces in control of the northern coastal
city Gona?ves, they have effectively sliced the country in
two, blocking the road from the capital to Cap Haitien.
Several towns near Cap Haitien have also fallen under
opposition control, tightening the noose around the city.

Cap Haitien has been without electricity since Sunday,
residents said, and with no trucks delivering fuel, the
pumps at most gasoline stations are dry. Those who did have
gas doled it out in drips to mobs wielding jerry cans and
buckets.

Relief agencies, unable to deliver supplies to rural areas
that are now in the hands of government opponents, worried
that if the road stayed closed for much longer children in
nearby villages could starve.

"We are in a very bad situation," said Andrea Bagnoli, head
of the United Nations World Food Program in Cap Haitien.
"If we cannot deliver food soon, the people we are feeding
will run out in less than a week."

After several days of violent confrontations and streets
blocked by barricades of flaming cars and tires, Cap
Haitien was relatively tranquil Wednesday. Tuesday's
barricades were mere char on the street, loose coils of
filament from spent tires and smoldering heaps of garbage.

Police officers here said that they were now firmly in
control of the town, and that reinforcements had arrived,
though they refused to say how many. Few officers roamed
the streets, and those who were on patrol stuck close to
their police stations.

In other cities, the police continued to struggle against
opposition militias. In Saint-Marc, which the government
said it had retaken, gun battles broke out between
government forces and opposition members in a slum that is
home to several opposition leaders, radio reports said.

But holding on to Cap Haitien was a top priority, for
political and historic reasons. Cap Haitien, besides being
the nation's second-largest city, is a potent symbol of
Haitian liberation. Slaves who toiled in plantations around
Cap Haitien began the revolt in 1791 that ultimately led to
the defeat of Napoleon's imperial army.

It is also a stronghold of opposition support, said
Frandley Denis Julien, leader of Citizens' Initiative. His
group, which is based here, led a march of thousands last
November that began antigovernment demonstrations that
ultimately led to the current crisis.

"The government has orchestrated a violent repression of
political opposition here because of our strength," Mr.
Julien said.

As the afternoon faded, many residents worried about what
new violence might bring.

"They already shot up my restaurant," said Phillipe Zephir,
who owns a nightclub and restaurant called La Kay. "I am
scared that tonight they will return to burn it to the
ground."

Political strife has gripped Haiti since a disputed
parliamentary election in 2000. With opposition groups
unwilling to participate in elections that were supposed to
take place last year, the Parliament session expired last
month, leaving Mr. Aristide free to rule essentially by
decree. Opposition groups have demanded that he leave
office.

The uprisings began a week ago in Gona?ves, which is now
controlled by a band of anti-Aristide militants. Once
ardent supporters of the president, they were part of a
militia group called the Cannibal Army. During the
uprising, 14 policemen and militiamen were killed by
opposition militia, according to radio reports, and on
Wednesday, militiamen burned an Aristide militant to death,
according to The Associated Press.

Inspired by the Gona?ves uprising, Mr. Aristide's opponents
across the country have attacked police stations in their
towns. The country's meager police force, believed to
number only 5,000, is poorly paid and demoralized.
Government officials said Tuesday that some police officers
simply abandoned their posts out of fear.

Robert Maguire, director of the international affairs
program at Trinity College in Washington and an expert on
Haitian politics, said the crisis was as grave as any Mr.
Aristide had faced. With a tiny police force and no army,
the country is ill equipped to deal with insurrection.

"The situation could be quite fragile," Dr. Maguire said.
"How long are the police going to be able to deal with this
situation? They have been in the streets for months. Now
they are being shot at. They are demoralized. Their
leadership is weak. I don't know how long they can hold."

Speaking with reporters for the first time since the
uprising began, Mr. Aristide called those who have risen up
against him "terrorists" and said he would not resign.

"We will not tolerate any type of violence coming from
anyone," The A.P. quoted him as saying.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/12/international/americas/12HAIT.html?ex=1077584763&ei=1&en=8a8e2a2c04720229
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company