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World | Print article | Email
Pro-Aristide forces attack opposition marchers
By Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Published: February 16 2004 9:44 | Last Updated: February 16 2004 9:44
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Impassioned government loyalists hurled rocks from atop the national television station onto opposition demonstrators Sunday as they tried to march into the center of Haiti's capital, sparking fights and police gunfire in another display of the deep divisions some here said signal a looming civil war. Sunday's march from the hilltop suburb of Petionville into the poor and hostile neighborhoods of central Port-au-Prince was a nervous and frequently halted procession.
Members of gangs backing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide sporadically rushed from the sidewalks, scattering frightened demonstrators until the event's organizers, fearful of further violence, called off the march. It was the second time since a bloody uprising by anti-Aristide rebels began Feb. 5 in the city of Gonaives that the president's mainstream political opponents had tried to take their grievances to the streets, only to be attacked. A rally planned Thursday was crushed before it started when pro-Aristide gang members erected barricades throughout Port-au-Prince, set fire to the obstructions and stoned the few people who dared try to march. In contrast to Thursday's confrontations, when police stood idly by, on Sunday officers in riot gear chased down and detained several gang members who menaced the procession until it reached the TV station. Police had tried to steer the marchers away from the site, a stronghold of Aristide's Lavalas Party, but ardent students within the crowd insisted on following their planned route. Police gave up defending them once the gang members, or so-called chimeres — Creole for "monsters" — began throwing rocks and chanting, "Aristide for life!" "We are calling off the march because we, as the organizers, do not want to be accused of allowing it to become violent," Evans Paul, a leader of the Group of 184 civil society movement, announced to journalists. Resentment of Aristide and his party has been mounting since reputedly fraudulent elections in 2000, which encouraged international donors to cut aid, worsening Haiti's economic crisis. Opponents want Aristide to step down and make way for a new government. After meeting Friday with other Western Hemisphere leaders to discuss the Haitian crisis, U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell issued a vague appeal to Aristide to "reach out to the opposition, to make sure that thugs are not allowed to break up peaceful demonstrations." Police made an effort to protect the marchers along the route, but pro-Aristide groups had set up burning barricades at Place Jeremie, the intended end point in the heart of the capital. Many in the opposition crowd feared walking into a trap if they continued, and heeded organizers' advice to go home. The march began with just a few people, but as it moved along the 5-mile route it picked up hundreds of supporters who lined the streets, listening to radios or conferring via cellular phone to check on security before joining in. By the time it reached the TV station, more than 1,000 people were chanting denunciations of Aristide and hoisting placards calling on the nation's patron saint to "Save Haiti." Others, however, thought it was too risky to participate. "I won't go out today. There are too few police, and the chimeres can easily attack us," said Maud Stocker, a grocery store owner who stood timidly on the fringes of Place Boyer, watching other opposition supporters gather. "I've gone on every other demonstration, but now there is so much tension in the air. The country is going toward anarchy." Sunday's relatively small turnout for Aristide's opponents suggested that the president and his supporters had been successful in cowing his critics by making violence the price of airing their opinions. That reality appears to be driving new divisions among opposition supporters. Most are still committed to remaining peaceful, even if that means staying silent, but others, mostly students, say it's time to fight. "I started out a pacifist, but now I want to go to Gonaives," said Berny Leveque, a 29-year-old communications student. "Peaceful marches have gotten us nowhere, because Aristide knows only force. Violence provokes violence. You have to do something." Andre Apaid, a Group of 184 leader, insisted that the Democratic Platform — an umbrella group uniting all mainstream opposition forces — remains opposed to violence and has dissociated itself from the armed rebels in Gonaives, whose uprising has led to about 50 deaths. Most of Aristide's political opponents have reacted to the suppressed marches with frustration and a sense of helplessness. "The Platform wants to be peaceful, but we will never get rid of Aristide by marching. He has distributed weapons to his partisans, and we are headed for civil war," said Carmelle Jean-Marie, a 43-year-old economist who works in Cuba. "I don't have a gun. I don't even know how to use one." This article appears by special arrangement with the Los Angeles Times
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