19398: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By PAISLEY DODDS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 28 (AP) -- Anarchy spread across Haiti's capital
Saturday as residents looted warehouses, government loyalists attacked
passers-by and rebels advanced closer to the seat of power. President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide ignored international appeals to resign.
   Aristide loyalists robbed drivers for the U.S. and French embassies
early Saturday, witnesses said. They said the French Embassy driver also
was beaten.
   Attacks against members or employees of the international community have
increased in recent days since U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell and
French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin called for Aristide to cede
power amid rising violence.
   Rebels were seen by an Associated Press reporter on Friday in
Mirebalais, 25 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince.
   In the capital, at least five people died Friday when pro-government
militants unleashed a wave of attacks on bystanders, burning barricades,
hijacking cars, and looting the city's sole operating hospital.
   The body of a man shot in the head was still on the street Saturday,
just blocks from the National Palace. Four other bodies had been hauled
away.
   Looting continued, with people taking large bags of lentils donated by
the U.S. Agency for International Development and held at a warehouse by
the port. Looters were seen Saturday wearing stolen hospital gowns and
carrying machetes.
   Radio Vision 2000 suspended broadcasts after assailants shot at the
building early Saturday morning. Some journalists have been targeted by
pro-government thugs who perceive reports as biased against Aristide. At
least two journalists have been killed in the last three years; nearly a
dozen have gone into exile, fearing for their lives.
   Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, said he would
not step down before his term ends in February 2006.
   Some 2,200 U.S. Marines were put on alert as Pentagon officials weighed
the possibility of sending troops to waters off Haiti to guard against any
flood of refugees and to protect the estimated 20,000 Americans in the
Caribbean country.
   Aristide has pleaded for a small contingent of foreign peacekeepers to
quell the uprising that has killed more than 80 people since it began in
the country's north earlier this month.
   "I have the responsibility as an elected president to stay where I am,"
Aristide said. "My life is linked to 8 million people."
   The international community -- led by the United States, France and
Canada -- has insisted that Haiti's government and opposition reach a
political settlement before foreign forces intervene.
   A senior U.S. official said the Bush administration has concluded that
the best way to prevent insurgents from seizing control is for Aristide to
transfer power to Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre, his
constitutional successor.
   "We urgently call upon President Aristide to issue the necessary
instructions so his supporters stop this violence," the U.S. Embassy said,
adding that "his honor, legacy and reputation are now at stake."
   The U.S. government urged all Americans still in Haiti to seek safe
haven.
   U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan expressed increasing concern late
Friday at "the alarming deterioration" in the country and called on
Haitians to settle their differences peacefully.
   His statement came as Aristide militants attacked the Canape Vert
hospital, the only hospital still operating in Port-au-Prince. Radio
stations said the militants were searching for Aristide opponents. Among
the patients was a journalist accused of sympathizing with the rebels and
shot in the northern city of Cap-Haitien, which was seized by the
insurgents on Sunday.
   The report could not be confirmed, but submachine gunfire could be heard
and three green military helicopters hovered over Petionville, the hillside
suburb where the hospital is located.
   "The U.S. government is discouraged to report that pro-government groups
have begun to burn, pillage and kill," said the U.S. Embassy statement.
   The city was chaotic. Armed thugs hijacked cars and robbed people at
barricades.
   Hundreds of looters began to pillage Port-au-Prince's seaport on Friday,
scurrying with boxes of chicken parts, pork loins, televisions and other
goods.
   Shops put up hurricane shutters and people stayed home behind locked
doors, leaving the streets to pro-Aristide thugs. A few police patrolled in
cars, but were vastly outnumbered by the militants.
   The rebels, who have overrun half of Haiti, closed in on the capital,
taken several villages as police fled.
   Guy Philippe, the rebel commander, said rebels have encountered little
resistance and he intended to besiege the capital and "close the circle"
around Aristide.
   "We want to block Port-au-Prince totally," he said in Cap-Haitien.
"Port-au-Prince now ... would be very hard to take it. It would be a lot of
fight, a lot of death," Philippe said. "So what we want is desperation
first."

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Associated Press reporters Michael Norton and Mark Stevenson contributed to
this report from Port-au-Prince. Ian James reported from Cap-Haitien.