19019: -(Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Key Haitian city falls as rebels aim for capital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Feb. 23, 2004


CRISIS IN HAITI
Key Haitian city falls as rebels aim for capital
Cap Haitien, the second largest city, is captured with little resistance as
the country braces for possible violence in Port-au-Prince today.
BY PETER ANDREW BOSCH
pbosch@herald.com

CAP HAITIEN, Haiti -- A mere 25 to 30 gunmen seized Haiti's second-largest
city in a swift, one-hour firefight Sunday that sent police fleeing and
handed President Jean-Bertrand Aristide the most stunning defeat of the
18-day-old rebellion.

Seven heavily armed pro-Aristide militants fleeing the attack hijacked a
Tropical Airways plane waiting to take off from Cap Haitien for the Turks
and Caicos Islands, and flew to the capital city of Port-au-Prince,
officials said.

Another rebel attack overnight on a police station on the capital's northern
outskirts -- the closest the rebels have come to Port-au-Prince in their
push to topple Aristide -- left at least one wounded and fueled speculation
that the rebels would next attack the capital today.

The stunning capture of Cap Haitien was the rebels' biggest prize yet in a
fight that has left more than 60 dead and prompted a U.S.-backed
international mission to intensify its efforts to force Aristide to
surrender some of his power to his political opponents in hopes of easing
Haiti's crisis.

Witnesses said 25 to 30 rebels aboard five trucks and cars attacked Cap
Haitien around 11 a.m., and within one hour had seized control of the
central Carenage area. A separate column of another 25 to 30 rebels joined
them after the fighting was over, the witnesses said.

Most of the fighting appeared to have taken place around the airport, where
rebels claimed to have killed eight men, but by the time they entered the
central area the police had fled and left their stations empty.

Rebels first allowed residents to loot the stations, then set them on fire
and moved on to the port, where thousands of people formed an ant-like line
carrying out sacks of rice on their heads. One man carried a toilet.

The rebels also destroyed Radio Africa, owned by Nawoom Marcellus, a former
parliament deputy from Aristide's Lavalas Family party, and Tele Konbit, a
television station owned by Jose Elysse, an advisor to Aristide.

EX-CHIEF'S GROUP

The rebels were members of the Haitian Liberation Front, one of two groups
fighting to topple Aristide. It is led by Guy Philippe, a former Cap Haitien
police chief, a drug-trafficking suspect and coup plotter who last week
brazenly announced he would soon attack the city.

The threat by Philippe, whose fighters are mostly former members of the
military abolished by Aristide in 1995, prompted armed Aristide supporters
to set up barricades around the city and vow that they would make a stand,
while panicky police retreated to their barracks.

Several Aristide supporters fled Cap Haitien aboard two motorboats as soon
as the fighting started, said Anne-Claude Zephir, who runs a seaside
restaurant.

''The people in charge here were simply outgunned and outmaneuvered,'' said
one local journalist. ``All the police have left.''

ANTI-ARISITIDE CHANTS

Most of the city's 500,000 residents appeared to be staying home out of fear
of looting and continuing gunfire, but thousands spilled out into the
streets to chant ''Aristide must go!'' and rejoice in the flight of the
pro-Aristide militants who had kept a brutal grip on the city.

''Tonight, I can walk on streets after 6 p.m. and be safe. Tonight I will be
able to sleep,'' said one man who gave his name as John Lenon.

The attack left virtually all of northern and central Haiti outside the
government's control, and again underlined the weakness of Haiti's
4,000-member police force, which has abandoned about two dozen towns since
the rebellion began Feb. 5.

Tropical Airways manager Jacques Jeannot said seven pro-Aristide militants
armed with AK-47s and machetes hijacked at 10 a.m. one of his Dash-8
turboprops that had been waiting to take off from Cap Haitien for
Providenciales in the Turks and Caicos Islands and forced the pilot to fly
them to the capital.

''The gunmen were walking up and down the ramp,'' said one man who witnessed
the hijacking of the Haitian-owned airplane. ``All of a sudden these . . .
heavily armed individuals boarded the flight and made them go to
Port-au-Prince. We don't know who they were.''

Several panicky passengers quickly scrambled aboard a Fort Lauderdale-bound
Lynx Air International flight out of the city.

''We had more people trying to get on the flight than we had seats,'' said a
member of the Lynx Air flight that was greeted at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood
International Airport by agents from the FBI and the Broward Sheriff's
Office.

Earlier in the day, Cap Haitien Police Chief Charles Chily told The Herald
that reinforcements were being rushed in from the capital. ''We are
waiting,'' he said, as shooting between rebels and police continued.

PLAN OVERSHADOWED

But the fall of Cap Haitien into rebel hands was certain to cast a pall over
the efforts by Washington, Paris, the Organization of American States and
the Caribbean Community to broker an agreement between Aristide and his
political opposition, who have distanced themselves from the armed rebels.

Aristide on Saturday accepted the international proposal, but the political
opposition said it needed until 5 p.m. today to consider the deal, which
would require them to give up their demands for the president's resignation.

Before the city fell, a senior Western diplomat in Port-au-Prince told
reporters that opposition leaders ``are really risking everything by
refusing the helping hand of the international community.''

''If they say no, they will have forfeited the support of the international
community. [It's] a tremendous risk,'' he warned, although he seemed at a
loss to explain what would be the next step.

''We're looking at that now,'' the diplomat said.

French officials have been pushing for an international peacekeeping force,
with U.N., OAS or CARICOM approval, at least to stabilize the hemisphere's
poorest nation.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trenton Daniel, Jacqueline Charles and Carl Juste of The Herald contributed
to this report.

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