Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Haiti-I

Haitian Rebels Set Sights on Rest of Country

Updated 12:17 PM ET February 23, 2004


By Alistair Scrutton

CAP HAITIEN, Haiti (Reuters) - Rebels set their sights on the rest of Haiti on Monday after swooping in to take the country's second-largest city in an escalation of a bloody rebellion against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, prompting the United States to send in Marines to protect its embassy.

With the rebels now in control of Cap Haitien and determined to move on, Washington was sending about 50 U.S. Marines to protect its embassy in the capital of Port-au-Prince, a U.S. official said on Monday.

France, the former colonial power in the poorest country in the Americas, joined several other foreign governments and told its citizens to leave the country, wracked by violence that has killed more than 50 people since the revolt began on Feb. 5.

Seizing their biggest prize so far, a ski-masked-clad rebel force of about 200 overran the northern city of Cap Haitien, a city of about 500,000, on Sunday, putting anti-Aristide forces in control of much of the north.

Gunfire rattled through the streets of Cap Haitien and columns of smoke rose from at least two buildings on Sunday when rebel took control of the airport and chased poorly trained government police from the city. At least one person was killed and several were injured.

Cap Haitien appeared calm a day after the rebels struck. Cows ambled by the side of the runway at the airport and people on bicycles went about their normal business.

Joking and relaxed, a rebel leader said his comrades would soon take over the rest of the country.

"We will liberate Haiti from the slavery of Aristide," said Louis Jodel Chamblain.

"So far, the only resistance we've encountered has been with machetes," Chamblain told Reuters in an interview at the city's airport.

Chamblain, a former leader of a militia that terrorized Haitians in the early 1990s, was surrounded by about 50 rebel fighters dressed in military fatigues and some armed with automatic rifles. The rebels wore motorcycle helmets and dark glasses with gas masks tied to their belts.

Asked about reports that the rebels would try to take Haiti's capital within two weeks, Chamblain said they would move on Port-au-Prince "when the people demand it."

"I don't discuss strategy," he said with a grin.

The relative ease with which the rebels took Cap Haitien heightened fears in the capital, but Aristide still has plenty of supporters in the teeming city.

"Aristide was sent to us by God," said Reginald Hommage, who called himself a loyalist of Aristide's Lavalas Family party.

Corneirre Jeon Luny, a Red Cross nurse who works at a hospital in Cap Haitien, said fighting in the city had not been heavy. She knew of one person who had been killed in the battle, as well as several others injured.

"The people welcomed the rebels. They clapped at them in the streets but there has been some looting," she said.

She said pro-Aristide gangs put up little resistance and fled along with police when the rebels entered the city.

Sunday's attack mirrored the rebels' hit-and-run tactics used in a series of assaults on cities and towns across northern Haiti since anti-Aristide forces mounted the most serious threat to the embattled former Roman Catholic priest.

The revolt, which erupted in the western city of Gonaives, was begun by an armed gang that once supported Aristide and turned against him. It has been joined by others including Chamblain and ex-soldiers from the army that Aristide disbanded when he returned to power in 1994 after being ousted in a coup months after taking first office in 1991.

The assault on Cap Haitien came as opposition political parties, who want Aristide gone but have distanced themselves from the armed rebels, faced a Monday deadline from foreign mediators to decide if they would accept a power-sharing deal that would leave the president in office.

But even if they did agree to the deal, it was far from clear that would halt the advances of armed rebels who have mounted a parallel and more serious threat to Aristide.

Aristide championed Haitian democracy in the 1980s and became its first freely elected leader in 1991, but is now accused of corruption and political thuggery by his opponents. He has vowed to stay on until his second term ends in 2006.

http://dailynews.att.net/cgi-bin/news?e=pri&dt=040223&cat=news&st=newshaitidc


Analysis: Haiti's diverse rebels


Guy Philippe (right) is celebrating a string of victories
The insurgents who have seized power in northern Haiti and vowed to take the capital Port-au-Prince are a disparate lot.
The main rebel leaders were once bitter enemies, and are now united mainly in their hatred for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The insurgency began in early February in the north-western city of Gonaives, when armed supporters of Mr Aristide turned against the president.

As the rebellion spread, the rebels received support from exiled soldiers who served under former strongman Raoul Cedras in the early 1990s.

Bandwagon

The leader of the initial uprising in Gonaives is 33-year-old Butteur Metayer - a prominent member of the "Cannibal Army", a local gang which until recently enforced loyalty to Mr Aristide's party.

But in September he accused the president of ordering the killing of his brother, Amyot Metayer.


Metayer's switch ignited the rebellion
Butteur Metayer took control of the group, renamed it the Resistance Front, and on 5 February "liberated" Gonaives.

From his headquarters in a wooden shack, Mr Metayer declared he ruled the country's fourth-largest city and called on Haitians to take up arms against the president.

As a number of towns and cities fell in the next few days, others jumped on the rebels' bandwagon - notably cashiered soldiers from Mr Cedras's army.

They crossed over from the neighbouring Dominican Republic, where they had been living in angry exile since the former army was dissolved in 1995.

Hit

These insurgents - some well-equipped and wearing fatigues, others in casual dress and carrying old guns - seized pick-up trucks and marched into eastern towns.

Calling themselves the New Army, they do not regard themselves as rebels, but as the regular armed forces of Haiti.


Chamblain is accused of atrocities under military rule
The exiles' leader is Louis Jodel Chamblain, 50, who fled to the Dominican Republic in 1994.

A former sergeant, he is accused taking part in a number of atrocities during the years of military rule.

He was suspected of involvement in a 1987 election massacre, in which 34 voters were killed and a civilian-run ballot aborted.

In 1993 in co-founded the Front for Haitian Advancement and Progress - Fraph, which sounds like "hit" in French.


The group is accused of killing thousands of supporters of Mr Aristide.

Plots

Mr Chamblain denies involvement in any paramilitary activities and describes himself as a "Haitian patriot".

He returned from exile with another controversial former soldier, Guy Philippe, 35.


Aristide supporters are being hunted down across the north
Trained in the United States and Ecuador, he was a senior security official under President Rene Preval, a civilian elected in 1995.

Now Mr Philippe and Mr Chamblain are allies, and celebrating their capture of Cap-Haitien, the country's second city at the weekend.

But a few years ago they were on opposite sides, as the Preval government hunted down members of the ousted military junta.

However Mr Philippe fled the country in 2000, accused of involvement in a plot to overthrown Mr Preval.

These men hope to be Haiti's next leaders. They will need to bury many old grievances if they are to rule in harmony.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3515267.stm