19200: (Chamberlain) Some Aristide supporters set to fight Haiti rebels (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Amy Bracken

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 25 (Reuters) - Just outside the Haitian
capital, at the end of a muddy road, a lanky man in white bounces along on
an old bicycle, one hand on the handlebar, the other gripping a
wood-handled 12-gauge shotgun.
     Erns Erilus may not look the part, but he is on a serious mission:
preparing to retake Gonaives, the western city where an armed gang launched
an uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide three weeks ago.
     The rebels now control much of the north and have said they plan to
move on to take the rest of the poor Caribbean country. But Erilus and
other militant supporters of the president, some from slum gangs that are
no strangers to violence, say they will fight back.
     Haiti's police force, numbering fewer than 5,000 in a country of 8
million, have been outgunned and outnumbered in the face of rebels who have
been joined by a former militia leader and one-time members of the
country's disbanded army.
     Erilus, former mayor of the Delmas district of Port-au-Prince, is
training well over 100 men, according to a local radio journalist who
visited his base, a deserted field outside Port-au-Prince, this week. Most
have new guns, said the journalist.
     Erilus said some officials of the ruling Lavalas Family party were too
spoiled by the riches of corruption to want to put up a fight.
     "A lot of Lavalas have gained millions, and now they want to be safe
and enjoy their money, so I call on the poor to fight," Erilus said. "I'm
going to Gonaives not to fight for them (wealthy government officials) but
to fight for the rest of Aristide's mandate."
     Aristide, a former parish priest whose fight to oust the dictatorship
of the 1980s gained him a huge following among the country's legions of
poor, has said he is determined to stick out the rest of his second term to
2006.
     Erilus refused to provide details on the number or identity of his men
or when or how they would attack Gonaives. But he said a police car waiting
outside his home was going to take him to a meeting at the National Palace.
     Another pro-government militant is Samuel Jean-Baptiste. If called
into action tomorrow, Jean-Baptiste and his allies could find about 200
people willing to fight, he said, and if they had the means they would be
able to recruit more.
     "I have a plan to go," he said, "but Aristide has to make a decision.
He has to provide the means."
     Jean-Baptiste said gang members are already well trained. "We are
always making war in the slum Cite Soleil," he said. "This is what we are
training for."
      In a nearby slum, gang leader Fleurival "Dread" Wilme, said he too
was about to attend a meeting at the palace, and was awaiting government
orders to fight the rebels.
     "We have a solution," he said. "We're going to fight the Cannibal Army
because they are terrorists, because the Cannibal Army is not the state."
     The dire-sounding Cannibal Army was the name of the gang in Gonaives
that once supported Aristide but turned against him when its leader was
murdered in September. The gang blamed the killing on the president.
      Aristide has long been criticized by political opponents for using
armed gangs to intimidate and harass his foes.