19394: (Craig) CNN: Anarchy grips Haitian capital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


Anarchy grips Haitian capital
Friday, February 27, 2004 Posted: 11:50 PM EST (0450 GMT)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (CNN) -- With rebels claiming to have surrounded
the Haitian capital -- where President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was holed
up and vowing to stay -- armed gangs have taken to the streets, leaving
deaths, looting and fires in their wake.

CNN Correspondent Lucia Newman described the situation in Port-au-Prince
as "anarchy."

"Armed gangs, thugs, are ransacking, patrolling the streets at will, and
there are no police to be seen," she reported.

The U.S. Embassy issued a statement saying that "pro-government popular
organizations in Port-au-Prince have begun to burn, pillage and kill."

"The armed gangs that are spreading terror and attacking civilians and
the general population are acting in the name of Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

We therefore urgently call upon President Aristide to issue the
necessary instructions so that his supporters stop this blind violence
against the civilian population and public and economic targets. Mr.
Aristide must understand that his honor, legacy and reputation are now
at stake," the statement added.

Newman said some of the people killed had been shot execution-style,
their hands tied behind their back. One man had been castrated with a
machete.

The director of a major hospital told CNN that one of its patients was a
United Nations consultant, who had been shot trying to cross a
barricade. The consultant underwent surgery.

Foreigners crowded the capital's airport, trying to find a ticket out,
even though only one flight departed Port-au-Prince Friday.

The Dominican Republic Embassy in the capital began humanitarian
evacuations Friday, with five Huey helicopters taking off from the
embassy compound carrying an undetermined number of Germans, French,
Mexican, Korean and Venezuelan citizens toward neighboring Dominican
Republic.

Rebel leaders, whose groups now control much of the northern part of
Haiti, took Les Cayes -- the country's third-largest city -- Thursday,
and claimed Friday their fighters were encircling the capital with the
aim of choking it off.

Rebel leader Guy Philippe said the capital would be difficult to take,
so his forces are planning a siege.

"We want to block Port-au-Prince totally, so we are going to send two
boats here to stop the big boats coming from Miami with food and
gasoline and make them come here to the Cap (Cap Haitien, Haiti's
second-largest city, already taken by the rebels) and not
Port-au-Prince," he said.

The rebels -- and separately, Aristide's political opposition -- contend
his administration is corrupt and want him to leave office.

But Aristide vowed to serve out his term, slated to end in 2006, and
said he will stay to fight against the rebels.

"You call them rebels," he told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview. "I
call them by their names: They are killers, they are convicted killers,
they are terrorists."

The former priest added, "My life is linked to the life of 8 million
people. I have, as an elected president, the responsibility to do all
what I can to have the international community joining Haiti to prevent
those killers from coming to Port-Au-Prince, where we are."

Pressure mounts

crisis would be for Aristide to step down and transfer power to a
constitutionally mandated successor.

"We think he should make the decision in the best interests of Haiti," a
senior State Department official said. "If that involves him leaving,
that is certainly an option."

Under Haiti's constitution, a president could transfer power to the head
of the Haitian supreme court if he is incapacitated or unable to govern.

U.S. President George Bush said Friday the international community is
"planning for a multinational force" that could be sent into Haiti if
needed -- but only after a political settlement to the crisis is reached.

Aristide questioned the motives of the United States and the rest of the
international community in waiting to take action, noting that Bush sent
troops to Afghanistan to combat terrorism.

"In 2001, the world said 'No' to terror. Today, is it an issue of racism
that Haiti cannot find the international community joining Haiti, saying
'No' to convicted killers?" he asked in a CNN telephone interview.

Aristide became Haiti's first democratically elected president in 1990.
He was overthrown in a 1991 coup, restored to power by U.S. forces in
1994 and won a new term in 2000 in elections his political opponents
claim were rigged.

Several Caribbean nations Thursday urged the U.N. Security Council to
authorize an international force to enter the country. U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a special adviser to report
directly to him on the situation, but the council did not immediately
take action.

"The council acknowledged the call, and said it would consider all
options, including that of an international force, and would continue to
monitor the situation closely," said U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard.

Across the Atlantic, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin met
Friday in Paris with a delegation from the Haitian government, urging
quick action to implement a Caribbean Community-proposed solution to the
tiny nation's crisis.

A spokesman for Villepin said the minister reiterated to the delegation
a statement he had made Wednesday backing the Caricom action plan that
calls for a power-sharing transitional government, led by an appointed
prime minister, to rule until new elections can take place.

-- CNN Correspondents Lucia Newman in Port-au-Prince and Jeanne Meserve
and Producers Kevin Bohn and Elise Labott in Washington contributed to
this report.