18683: (hermantin)Miami-Herald-Violence mars protest in Haiti; carnival joy dampened (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Feb. 16, 2004



Violence mars protest in Haiti; carnival joy dampened
An anti-Aristide march in the Haitian capital is largely peaceful, but
violence mars its close, and the country's strife takes much of the fun out
of the carnival in Jacmel.
BY MICHAEL A.W. OTTEY AND TRENTON DANIEL
mottey@herald.com

PORT-AU-PRINCE -- Yet another demonstration against President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide ended in violence Sunday while mounting unrest kept revelers away
from Haiti's traditional Jacmel carnival.

The largely peaceful protest in Port-au-Prince turned violent after thugs
pelted demonstrators with rocks, and some marchers, saying they feared for
their safety, tried to deviate from the agreed upon route. The demonstrators
said sticking to the route would have placed them in danger from Aristide
partisans waiting up ahead.

Police blocked the marchers' attempt to veer off course, instead telling
them to go another way.

Police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse the marchers.

Some of the anti-Aristide demonstrators, mostly young men and women, threw
rocks at police and blocked streets with car bodies, boulders and just about
anything they could drag into the street.

The march drew fewer demonstrators than previous protests. Protesters
complained that police intentionally blocked roads, set up checkpoints and
kept some of them from reaching the march's starting point in an effort to
limit participation.

When the marchers finally set off from Petionville through Delmas to
Port-au-Prince, the demonstration was peaceful, even subdued, with no
incidents.

About 50 young people, several of whom identified themselves as current or
former university students, ran up a side street with police vehicles in
pursuit. The students rolled boulders onto the street to slow police.

As officers stopped to clear the road, the students continued running and
packed into tap-taps, customized trucks that are Haiti's main mode of public
transportation.

ONGOING STRUGGLE

It was the first demonstration to get off the ground since armed thugs
attacked and burned police stations in cities north of the capital. Gonaives
and St. Marc were wrested from the government as the rebels shot, burned and
looted their way through cities and villages. Paramilitary and army exiles
returned to the country to join forces with the militants.

Another protest planned for Thursday was abruptly aborted after groups
professing to be Aristide backers blocked roads with burning tires and threw
rocks at massing demonstrators. On that day police did little or nothing to
stop the Aristide supporters.

''What's happening right now is a general uprising,'' said Victor Boulos,
52, a handicraft importer and exporter who lives in Petionville. ``People
are just tired of being oppressed. We need some real changes. We're very sad
about it. That's not the Haiti we want.''

Daniel Supplice, 53, a sociology professor, said he doesn't have anything
personal against Aristide but sees the decline the country has taken since
Aristide entered the National Palace.

''I don't hate him, I don't love him, but there's one thing I know -- the
country is in the worst situation it's ever been, not only economically, but
socially,'' Supplice said.

Meanwhile, in the southern seaport city of Jacmel, the annual carnival
kicked off without the feared violence, though turnout was disappointingly
low.

''When there wasn't so much political turmoil, people used to fly in from
all over the place,'' said Dr. Jean-Elie Gilles, 40, a Haitian-American
professor living in Jacmel on sabbatical.

Jacmel, billed as the Ibiza of the Caribbean and the Riviera of Haiti in
tourist guides, is known for taking pride in avoiding the political strife
that jars the rest of the country.

The carnival normally brings tens of thousands of paradegoers, some of them
donning papier-mché masks of tigers, lions and other animals.

But this year's festival was different: the private sector, which
traditionally funds most of the event and whose base makes up the opposition
coalition Group 184, boycotted and only a few thousand people attended.

`ASHAMED'

''The private sector doesn't want to take the responsibility of dancing on
the stomach of the students,'' said Jacques Khawly, president of the Chamber
of Commerce for southeast Haiti. ``The private sector is ashamed to
participate in the carnival.''

The move prompted the government and a state-run bank to put up funding and
rely on voluntary contributions. Government parade organizers said the
decision was unfortunate.

Max St. Joy, whose Port-au-Prince band Diginice played on a stage Sunday,
took a nonpartisan view to the unusually few people in the streets: ``Due to
the political situation, I don't think people will turn out. They're afraid.
They don't know what will happen.''

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