18965: Lemieux: Chicago Tribune/Knight Ridder: Haiti Leader's Fate May Rest in Hands of Capricious Allies: Violent Gangs (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: JD Lemieux <lxhaiti@yahoo.com>

 Posted on Sat, Feb. 21, 2004

Haiti Leader's Fate May Rest in Hands of Capricious Allies:
Violent Gangs


By Gary Marx, Chicago Tribune Knight Ridder/Tribune
Business News

Feb. 21--PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - With a pistol tucked into
his jeans and a scowl on his face, one of this city's top
gang leaders surveyed the dusty, trash-strewn streets of
his turf and explained why he's ready to do battle with
enemies of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

"He came from the heart of the people and he defends the
majority of the poor people in Haiti," said the gang leader
known as Amarale. "We are proud to be with him."

Facing an armed takeover of Haiti's fourth-largest city and
the surfacing of notorious ex-police and paramilitary
leaders among his opponents, Aristide may find that his
fate ultimately rests in the hands of gang leaders such as
Amarale. They have supported the president in exchange for
power and patronage, according to experts, diplomats, human
rights officials and others.

Known as chimeres, or fire-breathing monsters, the gangs
have shown up in force at opposition rallies, throwing
rocks, setting up burning barricades and busting heads to
discourage a loose coalition of students, merchants and
others from pressing their campaign to oust Aristide two
years before the end of his term.

Aristide denies the allegations that he has armed and
financed the gangs, which also are suspected of political
killings. Those include the shooting deaths earlier this
month of five opposition activists in Cite Soleil, a jangle
of dirt streets, open sewers and cinderblock homes where
Amarale holds sway and the president enjoys strong support
from its 200,000 residents.

Human-rights officials and others say that in return for
their loyalty, gang leaders have been given free rein to
run their neighborhoods while carrying out extortion
rackets, drug trafficking and other crimes. With a weak
justice system and little government presence, gang leaders
often act as judge and jury, using vigilante-style justice
to eliminate thieves, rapists and others deemed
undesirable.

"If you steal something, the first time I will talk to you.
The second time I will kill you," said James Petit-Frere,
another Cite Soleil gang boss who says he has executed five
people since he became a chimere leader two years ago.

Experts say that Aristide's influence over Port-au-Prince's
gangs remains precarious despite claims of support from
Petit-Frere and Amarale.

Another powerful Cite Soleil gang leader recently turned
against Aristide after a key lieutenant was killed. The
gang leader suspected the government was behind the crime.
Even Petit-Frere says he wants to leave Haiti, fearing he
also may be targeted for death.

If such defections continue, Aristide could lose the
support of gangs--and with it much of the city. With only a
poorly trained police force and no army, the embattled
president could have trouble containing the two-week-old
uprising that has claimed at least 60 lives but for now is
not threatening the capital.

"Everyone with guns here is for hire," said Pierre
Esperance, director of the National Coalition for Haitian
Rights, a leading human-rights organization. "Guns are not
here to defend ideology. These people are mercenaries.
These people can turn against you any day."

A case in point is the gang-led uprising in Gonaives, the
nation's fourth-largest city. Gang members there once
supported Aristide but turned against him last September
after they suspected the government assassinated their
leader.

Today, the gang known as the Artibonite Resistance Front,
along with former police and paramilitary officials, poses
the main challenge to the Aristide government.

Resistance Front members not only control Gonaives, an
important port city of 200,000, but also have blocked the
nation's main north-south highway and cut off supplies of
food and fuel from northern Haiti.

Although Aristide has declared he is "ready to give my life
if that is what it takes to defend my country," he has also
said he is committed to ending the crisis peacefully.

Secretary of State Colin Powell has said the U.S. has no
plans to send military or police forces to Haiti to stem
the violence, adding that the international community wants
to see a "political solution."

U.S. officials have criticized Aristide's alleged use of
armed gangs and asked him to carry through with a pledge to
disarm them as part of a broader plan to ease the crisis.
But Aristide denies links to the gangs. "We never armed
people," the president told the Tribune last week. "We
don't even have enough ammunition and pistols for the
police."

Leopold Berlanger, a key opposition leader, said Aristide's
opponents are unwilling to compromise and will only
participate in negotiations over the terms of his
resignation, something Aristide has refused to do. However,
the political opposition has been largely marginalized by
the violent uprising.

Experts said today's gangs grew out of neighborhood
organizations that flourished after the 1986 downfall of
Haitian dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier.

The groups, known as popular organizations, helped provide
electricity, schools, water and other services in the
capital's vast slums where the government's presence has
been weak or non-existent.

The popular organizations also became a key political base
for Aristide, a former priest who swept to power in 1990
vowing to help lift the impoverished masses in the Western
Hemisphere's poorest nation.

Aristide was ousted in a military coup seven months later,
went into exile in the United States and returned to power
in 1994 after 20,000 U.S. soldiers invaded the island and
ended the military dictatorship.

Fearing another coup, Aristide disbanded the army and
formed a police force that experts say is corrupt and
ineffective. Aristide allegedly armed militants in Cite
Soleil and other slums after he was re-elected in 2000.

"The president has more trust in the gangs than the
police," said Lodemus Martelly, a Haitian Red Cross
official in Gonaives. "They are better armed."

Martelly said he saw government officials distribute three
pickup truck loads of old rifles and other weapons to gang
members in Gonaives before they turned on the president.

Petit-Frere showed off his M-14 rifle and 9-mm handgun to
journalists. He said the rifle came from the former Haitian
military. He refused to say where he got the pistol, which
is a police weapon. One expert said Petit-Frere has machine
guns and other heavy weapons.

Petit-Frere, rail-thin and 22, said he became an Aristide
supporter more than a decade ago and claims to have worked
in the president's security detail. Some Cite Soleil gang
leaders have met with the president, angering human-rights
workers.

Petit-Frere downplayed his role as a militant and preferred
to emphasize good works he said he has accomplished, from
installing lights to building a basketball court to paying
residents to clean up the streets.

Even some Aristide officials acknowledge the importance
civilians play in helping the government retain political
control.

Myrto Julien, the government's top official in Cap-Haitien,
Haiti's second-largest city, said the chimeres erected
barricades and patrolled streets in helping stop 60 heavily
armed Resistance Front members from entering the city 10
days ago. The gangs are still out in force to prevent a
rumored second attack on the city.

For now, Amarale said he also is ready to defend the
president.

"They won't overthrow the government," Amarale boasted. "If
they come from Gonaives, they will be eliminated in three
seconds."



To see more of the Chicago Tribune, or to subscribe to the
newspaper, go to http://www.chicago.tribune.com

© 2004, Chicago Tribune. Distributed by Knight
Ridder/Tribune Business News.

© 2004 KRT Wire and wire service sources. All Rights
Reserved.
http://www.miami.com

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard - Read only the mail you want.
http://antispam.yahoo.com/tools