posted on February 8, 2004 03:21:35 PM new
This country has been faction-fighting for a long time. Is the Aristide government corrupt, as its opposition claims, or are these violent clashes between groups like the 'Artibonite Resistance Front' and the 'Gonaives Resistance Front' and the government and nothing more than para-military attempts to retake the country and go back to running it ala Duvalier? Anyone know?
Police Flee Gonaives, Failing to Retake Control of Main City From Rebels
By Michael Norton Associated Press Writer
Published: Feb 8, 2004
GONAIVES, Haiti (AP) - Police fled this key Haitian city after failing in bloody battles to vanquish rebels seeking to oust President Jean-Bertrand Astride. The death toll Sunday in the recent violence rose to at least 18.
Some 150 police had tried to retake Gonaives on Saturday, two days after armed rebels seized and burned the police station and drove officers out. Before midnight Saturday, rebel violence had forced police to withdraw again, leaving seven officers and two rebels dead.
Police fought gunbattles with armed rebels hiding on side streets and crouched in doorways. It was unclear how many rebel gunmen were in the city of 200,000, Haiti's fourth-largest.
Crowds mutilated the corpses of three police officers. One body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete, and a woman cut off the officer's ear. Another policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents dropped a large rock on his body.
Haitian radio stations reported claims by other rebels that as many as 14 police were killed, but that couldn't be confirmed.
Two other deaths were reported in the nearby west coast town of St. Marc, where residents on Sunday blocked the town entrance with felled trees, flaming tires and car chassis. Police fled Saturday after clashes with armed Aristide opponents that left at least two dead.
"After Aristide leaves, the country will return to normal," said Axel Philippe, 34, among dozens of people massed on the main highway leading to St. Marc, located south of Gonaives.
Calling themselves the Gonaives Resistance Front, rebels took control of the Gonaives police station during a five-hour gunbattle Thursday and set fire to buildings including the mayor's house. They also freed more than 100 prisoners in the city, 70 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince.
Thursday's violence left at least seven dead and 20 injured.
Militants have attacked police stations and forced out police in at least five nearby towns since Friday, Haitian radio reports said. Judge Walter Pierre told private Radio Ginen that armed men were occupying the police station in the town of Anse Rouge on Saturday and had confiscated weapons.
A number of Gonaives and St. Marc residents said they had joined neighborhood committees to help the militants and keep watch over their areas.
Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000. The opposition refuses to join in any new vote unless Aristide resigns, which he refuses to do before his term ends in 2006.
At least 69 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since mid-September in clashes among police, government opponents and Aristide supporters.
posted on February 8, 2004 03:35:26 PM new
How could we possibly know unless we actually know someone that lives there?
It is so poor I doubt if even an honest government has the resources to satisfy the basic needs of the people.
If it was Muslim or Communist or had oil the government would be concerned. But being poor and in chaos is nothing to trip any alarms.
Perhaps they should export terror in order to get 'helped' to find freedom and be brought along into the present like Iraq.
posted on February 8, 2004 03:37:54 PM new
Pat, though it hasn't been publicized, Haiti has been in very bad shape since long before Aristide came in. I've dealt with quite a few Haitian refugees since 92, and I gather from what they've said, outside of Port au Prince, it's anarchy. I have been there, and I know a lot of people that used to go there. Not one of them go now.
I remember flying over the Haitian/DR border, and we could see it. Literally. It's been denuded on the Haitian side.
Having lived in the Caribbean, I find it hard to believe in any honest politician there. I saw how things work. It's much more up close and personal than here.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
posted on February 8, 2004 03:52:22 PM new
Heh... The Mouse That Roared, eh?
I know Carter led a mission to monitor Haiti's first democratic national elections in December, 1990.
In February, 1995, the United States government tried to reassert its role as an occupying power in Haiti with a three-day visit by former President Jimmy Carter, former head of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell and Senator Sam Nunn.
Carter told Haitian President Aristide he should "stay neutral" in the upcoming parliamentary elections.
Carter also met with all the parties and groups opposing Aristide, including those that backed the 1991 military coup. According to one right-wing leader, the former U.S. president urged the various rightist and militarist groups to get together to more effectively oppose the pro-Aristide forces.
It's a weird tangle, and one I don't pretend to understand, Gravid. I'd hope we could at least begin to unravel it without having firsthand knowledge, but maybe you're right...
Edited to add: Any insight as to why Haiti has been in turmoil for so long, Snowy?
posted on February 8, 2004 04:30:24 PM new
Haves and have nots, and some of the haves don't have as much any more. Very bad hatred going back many, many years. If I remember right, Aristide was considered something of a populist, comparatively speaking, for people who didn't have a voice in the process. The entrenched order didn't like that, and did and continue to fight about it. You don't hear about it in the States unless the body count gets high.
It's hard to explain. I don't think it will go back to normal until some kind of order can be agreed on, a transition from anarchy.
You have the right to an informed opinion -Harlan Ellison
