18934: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MARK STEVENSON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 21 (AP) -- Militants loyal to President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide clashed with protesters demanding his resignation in
the capital, while diplomats presented a U.S.-backed plan aimed at ending
the two-week rebellion.
   Scores of Americans, including missionaries and aid workers, were
streaming out of Haiti, acting on a warning from the United States to flee
mounting violence in government-held areas and threats of new rebel attacks
in the north over Carnival weekend.
   On Friday, anti-government protesters marched down the main road leading
to the airport in the capital, Port-au-Prince, denouncing any agreement
that does not demand Aristide step down.
   "Aristide's a scorpion," they chanted.
   They were confronted by the president's supporters who lobbed rocks and
bottles, then opened fire.
   About 14 people were wounded, including a Haitian journalist shot twice
in the back. Four foreign reporters were beaten up. One was slashed by a
machete and only saved by his helmet.
   Two of the key points of the international plan presented Friday were
disarming politically motivated street gangs and setting rules for
political demonstrations.
   Diplomats, led by Roger Noriega of the United States, were to arrive
Saturday to try to persuade Haiti's politicians to sign on, apparently
hoping that pressure from the popular uprising that has killed more than 60
people will impel them to a compromise they have resisted for years.
   But both sides indicated reluctance.
   "If it wants to resolve the crisis the question of Aristide's
resignation must be on the table," opposition spokesman Paul Denis said.
   Aristide has shown determination to serve out his term, which ends
February 2006, and said he could not negotiate with "terrorists."
   Aristide agreed months ago to the main tenets of the plan, then
presented by the 15-nation Caribbean Community, but he has done nothing to
act on it.
   Another requirement is the appointment of a prime minister acceptable to
both sides -- something they have not been able to agree on since flawed
legislative elections in 2000 were swept by Aristide's Lavalas Party.
   Aristide, who won Haiti's first free elections in a landslide in 1990,
has lost support since his re-election. Haiti's chronic misery has deepened
since international donors froze aid.
   The president, a former priest, has responded to growing opposition by
using police and armed gangs to stifle dissent.
   In Haiti today, life appears more dangerous in places like the western
port of St. Marc, where radio stations reported Aristide thugs torched 15
houses Thursday night, setting blazes that killed three people.
   "Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day
and night in St. Marc and the police are doing nothing," said American
missionary Terry Snow of Granbury, Texas.
   In Cap-Haitien, the last major government bastion in the north,
frightened police officers have barricaded themselves in their station and
left the streets to armed government supporters terrorizing the population.
   By comparison, rebels who began their uprising Feb. 5 in Gonaives, a
strategic crossroad city 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, this week
allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross through barricades of
shipping containers to deliver food and medical supplies.
   "I think they (foreigners) should leave Port-Au-Prince, Cap-Haitien and
Saint Marc, where Lavalas (Aristide's party) controls, but where we
control, it's safe," rebel leader Guy Philippe said Friday in an interview
in Gonaives with Associated Press Television News.
   Both sides have killed opponents and burned their homes.
   Philippe said the next rebel target is Cap-Haitien, the city where the
rebel leader once served as police chief before fleeing in 2000 amid
charges that he plotted a coup.
   An officer in the army that ousted Aristide in 1991, Philippe was named
Thursday to lead a loose alliance of four rebel groups, including the
Cannibal Army gang that says it was armed by Aristide to terrorize his
opponents in Gonaives and a former army death squad leader -- one-time
enemies who say they are united in their will to oust Aristide.
   French Ambassador Jean-Marc de La Sabliere warned at the United Nations
on Friday that the chaos "cannot but lead to a humanitarian catastrophe."
   More than 200 people from the United States, France and Canada stood in
long lines Friday at the airport, eager to get out.
   "We knew that it was right for us to leave. It's just hard," said Nancy
McWilliams, an 18-year-old from Ottawa who abandoned a volunteer job at a
children's home in Cap-Haitien.
   About 30,000 foreigners live in Haiti, including 20,000 Americans, 1,600
French and more than 1,000 Canadians.
   A small U.S. military assessment team arrived Friday, along with six
State Department employees, to reinforce and assess security for the U.S.
Embassy and its staff.
   All American-bound flights in and out of Haiti now have air marshals
because of hijacking fears, officials in Washington said.