20365: (Chamberlain) Besieged Aristide supporters pray for his return (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Christie

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 14 (Reuters) - As a Haitian crowd beat a
thief to death, a man wearing a cascade of gold bracelets and necklaces
shouted: "We don't need no chimeres in Petionville. They come here, they
die."
     For opponents of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, thieves and "chimeres" -- the
Creole term for chimera, or ghosts, used to describe the ousted president's
armed thugs -- are not much different.
     That is partly why in the sewage-strewn slums of Port-au-Prince where
Aristide still has his most fervent support, residents pray his proximity
from Monday in neighboring Jamaica will herald his eventual return, and
their salvation.
     "The president went away and now we are being killed," said a man
called Jean from Belair, a shantytown near the National Palace from where
Aristide ruled until driven into exile in the Central African Republic by a
month-long revolt and U.S. pressure two weeks ago.
     "If he's in Jamaica, it will be easy for him to come to Haiti," said
Jean.
     Since news spread that the former slum priest his followers
affectionately refer to as "Titid" will soon be a mere 115 miles (180 km)
from Haiti's shores, tensions have risen and passions have been stirred,
the new Haitian government says.
     On Friday night, U.S. Marines leading a 2,250-strong international
peace force battled Aristide supporters in Belair armed with pistols and
automatic weapons.
     Two gunmen were killed, the Marines said, though residents said as
many as 11 people were killed in the cross-fire .
     Saturday night was quiet, according to Marine spokesman Maj. Richard
Crusan. "Two quiet nights out of 10. We're improving," he said on Sunday.
     But Haitian and U.S. officials, who criticized Jamaica for allowing
Aristide to pay a visit that could last two-and-a-half months, fear things
will not be quiet for long.
     "There is negative potential, there is no denying that," U.S.
Ambassador James Foley said on Saturday. "And it must be said that Jamaican
authorities are, I think, taking a certain risk and certainly a certain
responsibility."
     In Belair, whose residents dismiss accusations Aristide was corrupt
and despotic and regard him as the only Haitian leader who cared about the
Caribbean country's poor, people believe his closeness will do the reverse,
halting violence.
     They say his departure triggered reprisal killings and harassment by
former soldiers who helped lead the revolt in which more than 200 people
were killed.
     They are scared to venture beyond the burning tires and wrecked car
bodies that barricade their neighborhoods because they say they will be
lynched.
     Bodies appear daily in the streets of Port-au-Prince. No one knows who
they are. No one knows how they were killed.
     "We're not stuck here in Belair but we don't want to go around and get
popped," said a Rastafarian street tough called Dread Junior. "We want
Aristide to come back, man. Then everything will be all right."
     His thin, bespectacled face gazing from posters with the air of a
messiah and printed on T-shirts and umbrellas, Haiti's first democratically
elected leader retains an almost mystical presence in the shantytowns.
     "If Aristide comes to Jamaica, that will be good because he will be
closer to us," said Jackson Francois, a leader of a pro-Aristide street
gang. "We want to hear him on the radio. We want to hear his voice."