New Haitian rebels seek Aristide ouster

by Bertrand Rosenthal

Sunday, February 15, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AFP): A fired police chief and a paramilitary leader have joined an armed rebellion against embattled Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, imperiling food supplies, officials said Saturday.

The new alliance makes more real than ever the threat that Aristide could be deposed for a second time.

About 50 people have been killed since troubles began last week after Caribbean leaders failed to persuade a weakened Aristide to cede power and avoid bloodshed.

Rebels took Haiti's fourth-largest city of Gonaives, where they were joined by former police commissioner Guy Philippe, fired after a 2000 coup attempt against Aristide, and paramilitary leader Louis Jodel Chamberlain, accused of human rights violations under military dictator Raoul Cedras who was in power in 1991-1994.

The two men announced their alliance over Radio Signal FM after meeting with Butteur Metayer, president of the Artibonite Resistance Front.

Philippe and Chamberlain said they had contributed truckloads of armed men to the rebels.

"No one can stop 500 well armed men," said Jonas Petit, spokesman for Aristide's Lavalas movement.

However, Lavalas backers had built barricades in Saint Marc, 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Gonaives along the road to Port au Prince, according to local journalists returning from the besieged town.

Haiti's 5,000 police represent the only armed government force.

"They are not enough," Petit said.

Rebels have torched the homes of dozens of Aristide supporters in Haiti's north and cut off a key highway.

Cap Haitien Mayor Wilmar Innocent said about 50 homes of pro-government residents were burned in nearby Dondon, while about nine homes of opposition sympathizers were charred in reprisal.

Armed rebels on Saturday were in control of Dondon, just south of Cap Haitien, its mayor said, adding that the insurgents were blocking a main highway.

Fast-moving former staff members of the military, disbanded by Aristide in 1995, from Haiti's east-central region were operating in the north, based out of Saint Michel de l'Atalaye, several sources indicated to AFP.

Rebels clung to control of Gonaives even as the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations warned that chaos imperiled hospitals and cut food deliveries in the north of the poorest country in the Americas.

Rebels took Gonaives February 5 and continued to other towns, insisting they could fight off any police attempt to retake the city.

Meanwhile, a Royal Caribbean Cruise Line ship canceled a call planned for Monday at the beach in Labadie, west of Cap Haitien, a source close to the company said.

In Washington on Friday, US Secretary of State Colin Powell said after meeting with his Canadian counterpart, Bill Graham, and a representative of the 15-nation Caribbean community, Caricom, that the forcible removal of Aristide was not acceptable.

In 1994, president Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops to return Aristide to power after he was ousted in a coup.

The Red Cross said hospitals ground to a halt as staff feared for their safety and victims were afraid to visit hospitals and seek treatment.

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