18915: Globe and Mail online: Riots force police from Haitian posts (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: thor burnham <thorald_mb@hotmail.com>

Associated Press and Canadian Press
POSTED AT 3:24 PM EST  Friday, Feb. 20, 2004

Port-au-Prince — Haitian insurgents torched police outposts and threatened
new attacks Friday in a spreading rebellion against a defiant President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

In Haiti's west, pro-Aristide supporters burned down homes in a seaside
neighbourhood and fired guns above the heads of residents who jumped into
the ocean for safety. Three people died in the blazes in St. Marc,
independent Radio Galaxie reported.

Scores of foreigners including missionaries and aid workers streamed out of
Haiti on Friday, fleeing the mounting violence.

More than 200 Americans, French and Canadians stood in a long line Friday
morning at Toussaint Louverture International Airport.

“We knew that it was right for us to leave. It's just hard,” said Nancy
McWilliams, 18, of Ottawa, who abandoned a volunteer job at a children's
home in northern Cap-Haïtien.

Some foreigners vowed to remain, clinging to an increasingly perilous
position between armed rebels and gangs loyal to Mr. Aristide. Those who
left and those who stayed were united by the pain of seeing Haiti torn
asunder yet again, and fear the little they have accomplished for its
impoverished people could be erased.

American missionary Terry Snow said six truckloads of pro-Aristide gunmen
set fire to seven houses in his seaside neighbourhood in St. Marc.

As their houses blazed, residents jumped into the sea and gunmen fired into
the air to stop them returning to land, he said.

“Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day and
night in St. Marc and the police are doing nothing,” said Mr. Snow, 39.

He said about 20 American, German, Norwegian and Canadian missionaries left
this week for neighbouring Dominican Republic from St. Marc, which has
become one of Haiti's most violent frontline cities.

No foreigners have been injured or killed in the uprising that since Feb. 5
has claimed the lives of at least 60 Haitians, about 40 of them police
officers. Armed men have, however, threatened missionaries and journalists.

The Foreign Affairs Department in Ottawa has issued an advisory warning
against travel to Haiti and telling Canadians already there to “assess their
need to be in the country.”

Spokesman Reynald Doiron said Friday that 2,500 to 3,000 Canadians are
believed to be in the country, and about 1,000 of them have registered with
the embassy. Steps are being taken to ensure the safety of embassy staff and
their families, he said, although "there are no plans to close the embassy.”

The United States on Thursday urged the more than 20,000 Americans in Haiti
to leave while transportation was still available. Haitian airlines said
Friday that flights from Cap-Haïtien were sold out.

Mr. Aristide, wildly popular when he became Haiti's first freely elected
leader in 1990, lost support after flawed legislative elections in 2000 led
international donors to freeze millions of dollars in aid. Even before the
rebellion, about half of Haiti's eight million people went hungry daily, aid
groups say.

The latest violence came as Canada, the United States and other countries
prepared to present Mr. Aristide and opposition officials with a political
plan to help calm tensions.

Federal cabinet minister Denis Coderre will be in the crisis-stricken island
this weekend along with representatives from the United States, France, the
Organization of American States, and Caricom, the 15-member Caribbean
community.

Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham said the explosive situation could be
defused through diplomatic means if Mr. Aristide acted on the Caricom
resolutions.

The plan presented to Mr. Aristide on Friday calls for an interim governing
council to advise him, the disarmament of politically allied street gangs
and the appointment of a prime minister agreeable to both sides. More
meetings are planned for Saturday with Aristide and his opponents.

U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the plan does not call for Mr.
Aristide's resignation, but the United States would not object if he agreed
during negotiations to leave office early. His term ends in February, 2006.

Canada has offered $1.5-million in humanitarian aid and Mr. Graham has said
Ottawa is willing to contribute 100 police officers to a stabilization force
after the duelling factions reach a political solution.

The newly appointed leader of a loose alliance of three rebel groups, Guy
Philippe, said he plans to attack Cap-Haïtien during carnival celebrations
that start Friday and run through Tuesday. Mr. Philippe was Mr. Aristide's
police chief in Cap-Haïtien but fled in 2000 after being accused of plotting
a coup.

About 60 frightened police officers have barricaded themselves into their
station at Cap-Haïtien, saying they are too few and poorly armed to resist,
while gangs of armed Aristide supporters have built roadblocks and vowed to
fight any rebel attack.

Mr. Aristide, who has survived three assassination attempts and a coup
d'état, was defiant Thursday, saying: “I am ready to give my life if that is
what it takes to defend my country.”

He has said he could not negotiate with “terrorists,” although opposition
leaders deny his charges that they back the rebels.

“If you are talking about the opposition that is publicly supporting
terrorists, don't think I will have the irresponsibility of handing them
over such a (prime ministerial) post,” Mr. Aristide told Radio-Canada in an
interview in French.

The Organization of American States approved a resolution Thursday night
expressing “firm support” for Mr. Aristide's government in its efforts to
“restore public order by constitutional means.”

OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria said he was confident that a political
solution could come “not in months, but in weeks.”

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