Aristide opponents cancel march after violent clashes
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Aristide supporters chant slogans in Port-au-Prince Thursday.
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Fueling barricades of flaming tires and hurling rocks, militants loyal to Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday crushed a mass march against Haiti's leader before it began.
Opposition leaders accused Aristide of orchestrating the suppression.
It came the day after Aristide vowed to retain power despite a bloody and popular uprising that has left 49 dead, affected a dozen provincial towns and blocked food and fuel supplies to northern Haiti.
In Port-au-Prince, the capital in the south, about 100 Aristide supporters began lobbing rocks as protesters gathered at a rallying point.
Protest organizers said one person was hit by a bullet and three were injured by rocks.
"Aristide has confirmed he is a delinquent outlaw president," one opposition leader, Evans Paul, told reporters. "We will not follow Aristide in using violence."
Business leader Andy Apaid Jr., also a member of the opposition coalition, said the international community "needs to ask Mr. Aristide to leave."
But U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on Thursday denied suggestions that officials favor a coup against Aristide.
"The policy of the administration is not regime change," he told the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "President Aristide is the elected president of Haiti."
Associated Press Television footage of Thursday's violence showed Aristide loyalists chasing an opponent and stoning him as he fled, stumbled and fell.
Critics at home and abroad, including the U.S. government, have accused Aristide of blocking similar demonstrations by allowing police and supporters to attack opponents -- charges the Haitian president denies.
An Aristide partisan pulled a gun on a U.S. Embassy security officer observing Thursday's events from a diplomatic vehicle, which then sped away, witnesses said.
Before dawn, Aristide loyalists set barricades of blazing tires to block the protest route. "The police have not done their duty to serve and protect," opposition leader Mischa Gaillard charged.
Opposition leader Andy Apaid Jr. speaks to reporters after calling off Thursday's march.
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Witnesses said the police retreated to their station when the protesters were attacked.
Aristide militants said they were protecting the station: "The opposition came to take over the police station. We came to stop these terrorists," said Bernabe Mervil, 33.
More than a dozen police stations have been torched in the provincial revolt that erupted a week ago. The stations are targeted because they symbolize Aristide's authority and police are accused of attacking Aristide opponents and extorting money.
The broad-based coalition that called Thursday's march has distanced itself from the bloody uprising, which is led by a former criminal gang and disgruntled ex-soldiers of the disbanded army.
But Aristide accused his political opponents of driving the revolt, telling reporters Wednesday that "They suffer from a small group of thugs ... acting on behalf of the opposition."
Aristide insisted he would keep power until his term ends February 7, 2006. He did not address how he planned to put down the insurrection, but said care was needed to prevent civilian casualties.
The rebels who started the revolt in Gonaives say they were armed by Aristide's party to terrorize his opponents in the city, Haiti's fourth-largest of 200,000 people which remains in rebel hands.
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Hatians pass under an Aristide banner in Port-au-Prince. The slogan reads, "Peace in the mind, Peace in the belly" in Creole.
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Many who once pledged allegiance to Aristide have turned their back on him since his party swept flawed 2000 legislative elections, international donors froze millions of aid dollars and the president has failed to keep his election promise to create "peace of mind, peace in the belly."
Panicked residents of Gonaives ran through streets Thursday screaming that police were launching a counterattack from a boat.
Gunmen yelling "Freedom or Death" rushed to the port and trained their weapons on an approaching vessel, which retreated. It was too far to see if it held police.
One rebel leader, Winter Etienne, said they were taking their battle to other cities from Gonaives, 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Port-au-Prince.
"We already have a force hiding in St. Marc, and we also have one hiding in Cap-Haitien. They are awaiting the orders to attack," Etienne said Wednesday.
But it appeared police backed by gunmen loyal to Aristide have reinforced their control in St. Marc, an important port 60 kilometers (45 miles) west of the capital.
Indicating most rebels have fled the city, rebel leader Charles Nord Thompson told Radio Vision 2000 on Thursday morning that he could account for only 10 of some 100 members who seized St. Marc on Saturday.
On Wednesday, witnesses said, police entered the slum stronghold where rebels were holed up, shooting to provide cover for Aristide militants who then set ablaze five houses and fired at fleeing residents.
Reporters saw the charred remains of one of two people witnesses said burned to death, and the bodies of three people apparently shot in the back.
Reprisal attacks also have been perpetrated in Haiti's second city, the northern port of Cap-Haitien, where Aristide supporters are manning barricades to block any rebel incursion. The house of a reporter for opposition Radio Maxima was burned overnight, witnesses said. Radio Maxima was shut down Dec. 17 by police who smashed and shot up equipment.
In Gonaives, dogs chewed Thursday on the charred remains of an alleged Aristide hitman that rebels killed by "necklacing" -- putting a tire doused in gasoline over his head and setting him aflame.
It's a form of assassination Aristide encouraged during the popular uprising that ended the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship in 1989.
Haiti has suffered 32 coups in 200 years, the last in 1991 when Aristide was ousted eight months after he became the Caribbean nation's first freely elected leader. U.S. President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 U.S. troops in 1994 to end brutal military rule, restore Aristide and halt an exodus of Haitian boatpeople to Florida.
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
