Open opposition to Aristide grows wider in Haiti

As police and government supporters have reacted to demonstrations with threats and brutality, members of Aristide's government and the ruling Lavalas Family Party are jumping ship.

In the course of less than two weeks, three Cabinet ministers, a director of a government ministry, and an ambassador have stepped down, and two senators have left Aristide's party, most citing the government's tolerance of violence from police and its supporters who now have armed men and boys in their ranks.

The latest casualty, Minister of Environment Webster Pierre, said in a letter Thursday night that he was resigning to "regain my freedom of speech."

Earlier this week, Haiti's ambassador to the Dominican Republic, Guy Alexandre, said recent thuggery of Aristide supporters against State University students and professors, including the dean who remains hospitalized, was "simply intolerable." Senator Dany Toussaint, once a staunch Lavalas member, called Aristide's rule "despotic" and "fascist."

Officials have so far discounted the resignations and accusations.

"All the ministers are under a lot of pressure," said Minister of Culture and Communication Lilas Desquiron on hearing of resignations earlier this week. "The media campaign against Lavalas is very strong. There are some ministers who can handle it better than others."

But fed up with police corruption and brutality, insecurity, and continued economic degradation, the protesting students and politicians have been joined by a broad collection of organizations and individuals.

Business groups, unions, the State University's deans, intellectuals, artists, the country's two largest farmers organizations, and a series of local and foreign nongovernmental organizations have all begun to call more fervently for the president's resignation, saying much-needed elections are impossible under Aristide's rule.

Trying to broker a way out of a political impasse which has stymied Haitian political and social life for almost three years, Aristide, the United States, and the Organization of American States have called for elections. Almost all parliamentary and all local officials' terms end in early January.

This week, citing the violent attacks on protesters, Washington and the OAS both stepped up their criticism of Aristide's government.

"The Haitian government is acting with armed gangs working to violently repress demonstrations," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday.

Aristide, in an unannounced appearance on National Television on Thursday, said he hoped the opposition and other sectors would change their minds and support elections.

Aristide also condemned recent violence by his supporters and police, saying it was "unacceptable." Despite his frequent condemnations over the past three years, however, Amnesty International and other rights groups have repeatedly deplored continued and increasing violence against dissidents and the press.

On the eve of Haiti's bicentennial, to be celebrated on Jan. 1, Aristide also asked for a truce. "It's not a question of supporting or not supporting the government. It's a question of a country that is going to celebrate 200 years," Aristide said during the 90-minute appearance.

Earlier this week, Aristide called for "mobilization" against what he said was the political opposition's attempt to sully the country's image, alleging that sometimes his enemies "put on Lavalas T-shirts." Several elected officials, however, have recently called on Aristide supporters to take up arms against the opposition.

Long-smoldering dissent erupted into a much broader movement this month after government supporters brutalized students and professors on Dec. 5, leaving the dean hospitalized with ruptured tendons.

A student-led protest march on Dec. 11 was joined by tens of thousands of people from all social backgrounds who came off the sidewalks and into the city's main boulevards. The protest was the largest antigovernment show of force in 10 years. Since then, critics have marched in a half-dozen provincial cities.

Police and Aristide supporters have reacted with progovernment rallies as well as threats and violence.

Dozens of protesters and a few progovernment militants have been hurt in clashes this month already, and at least one person, a student in the rural town of Trou du Nord, was shot and killed by police amid unclear circumstances.

This week, the government also attempted to quash dissent with a communique severely restricting demonstrations, but students and others have so far ignored the new rules.

"We're not afraid! We'll never be afraid!" several hundred student protesters chanted in Port-au Prince just before a run-in on Wednesday with heavily armed anti-riot police.

In that clash, dozens of police vehicles crisscrossed the university zone in search of several hundred student marchers who had been joined by representatives of a coalition of more than 40 business groups, opposition political parties, and civil society organizations.

Without warning, officers, some clad in black ski masks and holding automatic weapons, repeatedly hurled teargas grenades, scattering marchers, street vendors, and pedestrians.

Parallel to the police action, two truckloads of self-proclaimed Aristide militants zoomed up and down streets, shooting off guns, waving steel bars and clubs, and hooting as they hunted down protesters. One group rode in a state telephone truck, the other in a van draped with Aristide posters and banners. Police did nothing to stop them.

At least a half-dozen people were wounded.

Aristide still has supporters, and his party members and militants muster large crowds when he speaks. They often provide buses to bring people from the countryside or poor neighborhoods.

Thousands paraded in front of the National Palace on Tuesday, the 13th anniversary of the president's 1990 election, vowing to defend him against those calling for his resignation.

"Aristide yes! Coup d'etat no!" shouted men, women, and children as they danced to the music of a street band.

"The rich people in this country don't like Aristide because he cares about the poor," Minouche Lambert, in an Aristide T-shirt with Aristide buttons, explained. She flew in from Brooklyn, N.Y., for the Lavalas Family Party's annual convention.

Many Haiti watchers feel the current spiral of protests and reaction signal possible chaos nationwide and maybe even regime change.

"All the ingredients are there to have more and more violence," said Robert Letendre, director of Development and Peace, the Canadian Catholic Church's international funding agency.

In a letter dated Dec. 16, the group, which once considered Aristide a national hero, asked the Canadian government to push him to step down.