Print this page Four dead in riot From correspondents in Port-au-Prince 06feb04 FOUR people were killed and at least 20 injured Thursday when armed anti-government militants torched a police station and staged a huge jailbreak in the Haitian town of Gonaives, opponents of the president said. "Four neighborhood civilians were killed in the shootout," Buteur Metayer, a leader with the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front (RARF), told reporters. Another 20 people were shot and injured, he said, but there was no immediate official confirmation. Metayer's group seized the police station and freed the 100 prisoners believed to have been held in the adjacent jail earlier Thursday. They then torched the station and spread through city, later torching the home of Gonaives' mayor. "Gonaives is free, the stores can open but the schools must remain closed," said Winter Etienne, another RARF leader. At least 50 police officers were in the station at the time of the attack. Witnesses said they saw police officers emerging from the besieged police station with their hands in the air, while other officers fled. Metayer's group once allied itself with Haitian President Jean Bertrand Aristide, but quickly turned against the government after Metayer's brother, Amiot Metayer, was found shot and mutilated on September 22. The surviving brother has since declared himself the provincial police chief in Gonaives and named Etienne mayor. The RARF had tried to seize the Gonaives police station several times, but had not succeeded until Thursday. During the siege a police helicopter hovered over the station. Gonaives, a coastal city, has been the focus of sporadic anti-Aristide violence since last September, and some 50 people have since been shot dead and 100 wounded. On Wednesday, the president defiantly rejected calls for his resignation and promised to finish his term. "I will leave here on February 7, 2006," Aristide said. "People must respect that principle, one man, one vote." Aristide's opponents say he stole the 2000 election that returned him to power. International observers also said the polls were flawed, leaving the Caribbean nation locked in political crisis. The former Catholic priest was first elected president in 1990, but eight months after taking office he was overthrown in a bloody military coup. The United States sent 20,000 troops to Haiti in 1994 to bring Aristide back to power. He stepped down after his first five-year term, and was re-elected in 2000. Legislative elections were supposed to be held last year, but no electoral body was set up to oversee the polls, leaving the nation without a functioning legislature. Aristide now rules by decree, but has promised elections within six months. The opposition has rejected his proposal as inadequate, and protests against Aristide have mounted in recent weeks. The demonstrations have often turned violent, with protesters have clashed with police and pro-government groups. Washington has accused Aristide's government of formenting violence against opposition protestors. International mediation efforts by Carribean nations and the Organization of American States have all failed to ease the crisis.
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