18521: Anonymous: Pro-Aristide Crowd Stones Protesters (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

Pro-Aristide Crowd Stones Protesters
2 hours, 57 minutes ago

By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - After blocking a march route
with flaming barricades, supporters of President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide threw stones at opposition
demonstrators Thursday, forcing them to cancel a mass
protest.


AP Photo


AP Photo
 Slideshow: Haiti Uprising




The clash came a day after Aristide vowed to stay in
office, despite international criticism and calls for
his resignation by a bloody revolt that has spread to
dozen towns and cities and left 49 dead.


"We don't want confrontation," opposition coalition
spokesman Mischa Gaillard said on independent Radio
Metropole. "The police have not done their duty to
serve and protect. Since our strategy is a peaceful
one ... we have cancelled the demonstration."


Critics including the U.S. government have accused
Aristide of blocking similar demonstrations and,
despite his protestations against violence, inciting
police and his supporters to attack opponents.


Aristide has blamed the opposition for the recent
bloodshed, accusing it of sponsoring a former criminal
gang and ex-soldiers of the disbanded Haitian army in
their deadly revolt moving through western coastal
towns along the Caribbean Sea.


"They suffer from a small group of thugs ... acting on
behalf of the opposition," Aristide said Wednesday at
his first news conference since gun battles between
rebels and police erupted Feb. 5.


Aristide's opponents have distanced themselves from
the fighting, although they — like the insurgents —
want to oust the president. "Our movement is a
nonviolent movement," Apaid said Thursday.


The president repeated his determination to remain in
office until his term ends in 2006. He did not address
how he planned to put down the insurrection. His
officials have said that, to prevent civilian
casualties, any counterattacks must be part of a
strategy that could take time to plan.


But the rebels who launched the revolt say they were
armed by Aristide's party to terrorize his opponents
in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, which
remained in rebel hands Thursday.


Winter Etienne, a leader of the rebel Gonaives
Resistance Front, said Wednesday they were taking
their battle to other cities.


"We already have a force hiding in St. Marc, and we
also have one hiding in Cap-Haitien. They are awaiting
the orders to attack," Etienne told The Associated
Press, referring to towns on the western coast.


But it appeared police backed by pro-Aristide gunmen
have reinforced their control in St. Marc, a key port
city 45 miles west of the capital. In an indication
most rebels had fled the city, insurgent leader
Charles Nord Thompson on Thursday told RadioVision
2000 that he could account for only 10 of some 100 men
who had seized the city Saturday.


On Wednesday, witnesses said, police entered the St.
Marc slum stronghold where rebels were holed up,
shooting to provide cover for Aristide militants who
then set five houses ablaze and fired at fleeing
residents.


Reporters saw the charred remains of one of two people
witnesses said burned to death, and the bodies of
three people apparently shot in the back.


Rebels perpetrated similar reprisals Wednesday in
Gonaives, burning to death a man accused of being an
Aristide hitman in the "necklacing" style: putting a
tire over his head, dousing him with gasoline and
setting him aflame.


It's a form of killing that Aristide once encouraged
during the popular uprising that led to the downfall
of the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1989
and his rise to power.


Haiti has suffered more than 30 coups in 200 years of
independence, the last in 1991, when Aristide was
ousted just months after his election as the Caribbean
nation's first freely elected leader. President
Clinton (news - web sites) sent 20,000 U.S. troops in
1994 to end a military dictatorship, restore Aristide
and halt an exodus of Haitian boat people.





U.S. officials say they now are on alert against any
new exodus set off by the uprising.

"We are extremely concerned about the wave of violence
spreading through Haiti," White House press secretary
Scott McClellan said Wednesday. "We call on the
government to respect the rights, especially human
rights, of the citizens."

Aristide's popularity has waned since his party swept
flawed 2000 legislative elections. International
donors have frozen millions of aid dollars, and the
president has been unable to keep his election promise
of "peace of mind, peace in the belly."

In Haiti's second-largest city, the northern port of
Cap-Haitien, Aristide militants manned fiery
barricades to block any rebel incursion and fired
shots through the night.

The house of a reporter for Radio Maxima, the voice of
the opposition in Cap-Haitien, was burned, witnesses
said. Radio Maxima was shut down Dec. 17 by police who
smashed and shot up equipment.