23938: Holmstead: (article) Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: John Holmstead     <cyberkismet5@yahoo.com>

For article with photos:
http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_16_4.html


Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return
in Haiti's second largest city

Haiti Information Project

Cap Haitien, Haiti (HIP) - On the anniversary of
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's first electoral
landslide in 1990, more than 10,000 Haitians took to
the streets of Haiti's second largest city to demand
his return and an end to repression against his
Lavalas political party. Aristide was ousted last
February 29th amid charges he was kidnapped by U.S.
Marines and remains a guest of the Republic of South
Africa where he resides.Following earlier negotiations
with Chilean troops of the United Nations and the
Haitian National Police (PNH), an agreement was
reached with organizers to provide security for the
peaceful demonstration. One organizer stated,
"Although we see the UN and the police allowing us to
demonstrate peacefully today for the return of our
president in Cap Haitien, we have no illusions that
their role could turn repressive once again. Even
though we are happy for their cooperation today, we
cannot forget it was the same UN that stood by and
allowed the police to kill unarmed demonstrators in
the capital on September 30th. It is the same UN that
has allowed the illegal government of Gerard Latortue
to fill the prisons with Lavalas and has allowed the
former military to return and kill us."

A huge banner accusing the Group 184 of having
orchestrated accusations against Lavalas of mounting a
violent campaign called "Operation Baghdad", led the
demonstration. Another organizer of today's
demonstration who asked not be identified explained,
"It was the Group 184 and Apaid who twisted the
violence following September 30th into further
justifying our extermination. Everyone knows September
30th began as a peaceful protest that degenerated into
violence after the UN stood by as police opened fire
on the crowd. We, in Lavalas, categorically reject the
assertions of Apaid's puppet Jean-Claude Bajeux, a
so-called human rights activist, and the international
press that there was ever any such campaign by our
movement. It was a fabrication that fed the violence
to justify our slaughter and we denounce those who use
it to portray our movement as gangsters and bandits.
Today we reclaim our right to peacefully demonstrate
to demand the return of our constitutional President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Chanting "Aristide must return!" and "We will never
accept the kidnapping of our president!" thousands of
residents poured from the poor neighborhoods of Cap
Haitien to join the demonstration. The massive crowd
broke into frenzy at the monument of Vetiere, which
commemorates the defeat of the Napoleon's armies in
1804, when Moise Jean-Charles joined them.
Jean-Charles is the founder of a local peasant
movement called Movement of Milot Peasants (MPM) and
the former popular mayor of the town of Milot located
below Haiti's most famous tourist attraction, the
Citadel.

Today's festive and peaceful demonstration in Haiti's
second largest city stood in stark contrast to the
atmosphere of fear and violence in the capital of Port
au Prince since September 30th. Two days ago the UN
and the US-installed government stood by as members of
the Haiti's former brutal military seized the former
residence of Aristide in the suburb of Tabarre less
than a mile from the headquarters of an organization
he founded called the Aristide Foundation for
Democracy. Many in Lavalas considered the takeover to
be an orchestrated provocation just before the
anniversary of December 16th designed to fuel further
violence and justify increased repression against
Lavalas.





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