18604: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By IAN JAMES

   GONAIVES, Feb 13 (AP) -- A food and medical crisis threatened this
rebel-held city Friday as gunmen sped through streets in looted trucks,
reinforcing barricades against a feared police offensive to halt an
uprising that has killed at least 49 people in Haiti.
   Roadblocks have halted most food shipments since the rebellion started
last week.
   "The problem is very grave," said Raoul Elysee, of the Haitian Red
Cross, meeting with rebels and aid officials to discuss ways to deliver
food, medicine and fuel.
   Emergency supplies of flour, cooking oil and other basics will run out
in four days, he said.
   In Washington, Western Hemisphere nations called Friday on parties to
the Haiti conflict to move quickly on implementing confidence-building
measures to ensure a peaceful, democratic outcome.
   Secretary of State Colin Powell said the verbal support offered by
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide for a political solution is not enough.
   "What we need now is action," Powell told reporters after meeting with
hemispheric colleagues at the State Department.
   Aristide, he said, "must reach out to the opposition, to make sure that
thugs are not allowed to break up peaceful demonstrations." He was
referring to violent tactics allegedly used in recent days by Aristide's
supporters.
   But, Powell said, the United States and other hemispheric countries
agree on the need for a constitutional outcome.
   "We will accept no outcome that, in any way, attempts to remove the
elected president of Haiti," he said.
   Opposition politicians refuse to participate in elections to rectify
flawed 2000 balloting, swept by Aristide's party, unless Haiti's leader
steps down. He refuses.
   The rebels say they will lay down their weapons only if they oust
Aristide -- but they are short on answers for dealing with immediate human
needs and Haiti's deepening poverty.
   At the hospital in Gonaives, the country's fourth-largest city, where
the rebellion erupted Feb. 5, more than a dozen people waited to see
doctors who never showed up. The Red Cross warned the unrest was
jeopardizing urgent health care needs.
   Relatives took patients from the hospital after the fighting broke out,
carrying them on their backs or on motorcycles, said Cerrament Herat, 68, a
hospital janitor.
   Only one badly malnourished man remained in the hospital Friday, lying
unattended in a bed.
   "I came here to find some help for my son and there is no one to help
us," said Yolande Saintil, holding her 8-year-old son, who she said was
suffering from a fever and stomach ache. "I've been coming since Monday.
There are no doctors."
   Another janitor, Pierre Joseph, said doctors were afraid to return
following a gun battle at the hospital a week ago, when police stormed in
carrying a wounded officer. With rebels in pursuit and officers in a panic,
the police opened fire inside the hospital walls, killing at least three
civilian bystanders, who were trying to hide, he said.
   Rebels dragged a wounded officer from the hospital and stoned him to
death, smashing in his head, according to an Associated Press photographer.
Police had tried to retake the city from the rebels, but failed.
   The International Committee of the Red Cross warned that many people in
need of medical care were not getting it and urged combatants to respect
international rules of combat.
   "Persons not directly participating in the clashes, including those who
surrender or who are no longer capable of fighting because they are
wounded, sick or captured ... may not be attacked and must be treated
humanely," the Geneva-based committee said.
   Schools and many shops remained closed in Gonaives. A single bank
reopened Friday, while dozens of people stood outside another one,
desperate for cash transfers from relatives overseas that are some
families' sole source of income.
   Gas prices have more than doubled, with fuel mainly reaching the city in
small bottles brought by motorcycle couriers.
   More than half the population has fled Gonaives to escape escalating
violence in recent months, leaving about 100,000 people, Elysee said.
   In the western city of St. Marc, where police have driven out rebels,
anti-Aristide militants burned down a clinic Wednesday because officials
refused to hand over two wounded anti-government militants.
   U.N. representative Adama Guindo appealed to police and rebels to open a
"humanitarian corridor" to northern Haiti, which has been inaccessible
because of barricades, some manned by drunken and aggressive thugs.
   The U.N. World Food Program has been unable to deliver food to some
268,000 people dependent on food aid in northern Haiti. The agency is
negotiating to get 1,000 pounds of rice delivered next week to the port of
Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city of more than half-a-million
people.
   Aristide militants have barricaded the city to guard against any rebel
incursion. A barge of gasoline was on the way to the city, which has been
without gas and power for nearly a week.
   Rebels on Friday discussed how to better defend Gonaives against a
police attack. Some set up a heavy machine gun at the edge of town while
others added discarded refrigerators and other junk to barricades
fortifying the city.
   There appear to be about 100 rebels in Gonaives. The police force for
Haiti's 8 million people numbers only 5,000 -- and they often are
outnumbered and outgunned.
   An opposition coalition plans a mass demonstration in the capital,
Port-au-Prince, on Sunday calling for Aristide's resignation. Attempts to
hold one Thursday were crushed by Aristide militants, who stoned protesters
and blocked the protest route with flaming barricades.
   ------
   Associated Press reporter George Gedda contributed to this story from
Washington.