18814: Esser: Fear as dark new force enters Haiti revolt (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: D. Esser torx@joimail.com


Reuters
February 19, 2004 5:45 AM

Fear as dark new force enters Haiti revolt
By Michael Christie

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Panic and fear have gripped parts
of Haiti after a notorious death squad leader and his band of
hardened ex-soldiers arrived to reinforce a revolt that threatens
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Government supporters flung up new street barricades on Wednesday,
gunmen attacked a gas station, some schools shut down andresidents of
the central town of Hinche continued to loot their burned-out police
station in the power vacuum left when a paramilitary force drove out
police.

Radio stations reported another town, Fort-Liberte in the northeast,
had fallen to the rebels.

The appearance of exiled right-wing militia leader Louis Jodel
Chamblain and former police chief Guy Philippe has added a new
dimension to the hitherto disorganised rebellion against Aristide --
once viewed as a champion of democracy but who now faces accusations
of corruption and political violence.

Philippe, who Aristide once accused of coup-mongering, on Wednesday
declared himself head of the armed forces in Gonaives, with 300
former soldiers under his command, Radio Metropole reported.

Many, including the government, believe Haiti's dispirited police
face a challenge they do not have the ability, or the weapons, to
overcome without outside help.

"Is Aristide going to negotiate his departure with the Chamblains, or
with us? That's the choice," said Charles Baker, a leader of the
political opposition that has distanced itself from the armed revolt,
but still refuses to negotiate an end to political tensions unless
Aristide resigns.

The port of Saint Marc, midway between Port-au-Prince and the city of
Gonaives, where the armed revolt began almost two weeks ago, was
locked down on Tuesday evening by militia manning barricades to
defend it against possible attack, according to a Reuters
photographer.

In downtown Port-au-Prince, gunmen drove past a gas station during
the night and fired at it until it exploded in flames. A few days
ago, apro-government leader in the area had said gas stations owned
by opposition sympathisers would be attacked.

In Hinche, whose police chief was gunned down alongside his bodyguard
on Monday by gunmen who returned with Chamblain from the neighbouring
Dominican Republic, residents stripped the corrugated tin roof off
the charred police station.

Police abandoned the nearby towns of Domond, Peligre and Chomonde on
the road from the capital, and schools closed.

Radio stations also reported a climate of fear in the northern city
of Cap-Haitien, the impoverished country's second-largest, where
government loyalists attacked suspected rebel sympathisers in the
days after the outbreak of the armed rebellion on February 5.

While making it clear that Washington would not support a government
installed through violence, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell all
but ruled out foreign police or military forces.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Wednesday both
Aristide and the opposition had to first take responsibility and
overcome a political impasse over flawed parliamentary elections in
2000.

"The Haitians themselves can bring calm, if they take the right
steps. And to the extent they have difficulty, once they embark on
that path,once they start taking these steps, the international
community has made clear it's willing to help," he said.

The U.N. Security Council expressed deep concern over increasing
violence and instability but left it to regional groups, such as the
Caribbean Community and the Organisation of American States, to lead
the search for a solution.
.