19032: (Chamberlain) Haiti rebels set sights on rest of country (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Alistair Scrutton

     CAP HAITIEN, Haiti, Feb 23 (Reuters) - Rebels set their sights on the
rest of Haiti on Monday after swooping in to take the country's
second-largest city in an escalation of a bloody rebellion against
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, prompting the United States to send in
Marines to protect its embassy.
     With the rebels now in control of Cap Haitien and determined to move
on, Washington was sending about 50 U.S. Marines to to protect its embassy
in the capital of Port-au-Prince, a U.S. official said on Monday.
     France, the former colonial power in the poorest country in the
Americas, joined several other foreign governments and told its citizens to
leave the country, wracked by violence that has killed more than 50 people
since the revolt began on Feb. 5.
     Seizing their biggest prize so far, a ski-masked-clad rebel force of
about 200 overran the northern city of Cap Haitien, a city of about
500,000, on Sunday, putting anti-Aristide forces in control of much of the
north.
     Gunfire rattled through the streets of Cap Haitien and columns of
smoke rose from at least two buildings on Sunday when rebel took control of
the airport and chased poorly trained government police from the city. At
least one person was killed and several were injured.
     Cap Haitien appeared calm a day after the rebels struck. Cows ambled
by the side of the runway at the airport and people on bicycles went about
their normal business.
     Joking and relaxed, a rebel leader said his comrades would soon take
over the rest of the country.
     "We will liberate Haiti from the slavery of Aristide," said Louis
Jodel Chamblain.
     "So far, the only resistance we've encountered has been with
machetes," Chamblain told Reuters in an interview at the city's airport.
     Chamblain, a former leader of a militia that terrorized Haitians in
the early 1990s, was surrounded by about 50 rebel fighters dressed in
military fatigues and some armed with automatic rifles. The rebels wore
motorcycle helmets and dark glasses with gas masks tied to their belts.
     Asked about reports that the rebels would try to take Haiti's capital
within two weeks, Chamblain said they would move on Port-au-Prince "when
the people demand it."
     "I don't discuss strategy," he said with a grin.
     The relative ease with which the rebels took Cap Haitien heightened
fears in the capital, but Aristide still has plenty of supporters in the
teeming city.
     "Aristide was sent to us by God," said Reginald Hommage, who called
himself a loyalist of Aristide's Lavalas Family party.
     Corneirre Jeon Luny, a Red Cross nurse who works at a hospital in Cap
Haitien, said fighting in the city had not been heavy. She knew of one
person who had been killed in the battle, as well as several others
injured.
     "The people welcomed the rebels. They clapped at them in the streets
but there has been some looting," she said.
     She said pro-Aristide gangs put up little resistance and fled along
with police when the rebels entered the city.
     Sunday's attack mirrored the rebels' hit-and-run tactics used in a
series of assaults on cities and towns across northern Haiti since
anti-Aristide forces mounted the most serious threat to the embattled
former Roman Catholic priest.
     The revolt, which erupted in the western city of Gonaives, was begun
by an armed gang that once supported Aristide and turned against him. It
has been joined by others including Chamblain and ex-soldiers from the army
that Aristide disbanded when he returned to power in 1994 after being
ousted in a coup months after taking first office in 1991.
     The assault on Cap Haitien came as opposition political parties, who
want Aristide gone but have distanced themselves from the armed rebels,
faced a Monday deadline from foreign mediators to decide if they would
accept a power-sharing deal that would leave the president in office.
     But even if they did agree to the deal, it was far from clear that
would would halt the advances of armed rebels who have mounted a parallel
and more serious threat to Aristide.
     Aristide championed Haitian democracy in the 1980s and became its
first freely elected leader in 1991, but is now accused of corruption and
political thuggery by his opponents. He has vowed to stay on until his
second term ends in 2006.

  (Additional reporting by Jim Loney)