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## Rebels seize Haiti's second-largest city

### Chaos reigns as Cap-Haitien falls to rebels with little resistance

##### New York Times

##### Posted: Feb. 22, 2004

Cap-Haitien, Haiti - Rebels on Sunday seized control of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, meeting little resistance as hundreds of residents cheered, burned the police station, plundered food from port warehouses and looted the airport, which was quickly closed. Police officers and armed supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled.

Haiti Rebellion
Photo/AP
Youths push a car away from the burning police station in Cap-Haitien, Haiti, Sunday. Rebels seized the government's last major bastion in the north, and residents looted and set buildings ablaze. "We are ready to die for Haiti," said a rebel commander.
Photo/AP
Haitian rebel leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain is seen in front of the burning police station in Cap-Haitien Sunday. A rebel commander predicted the capital, Port-au-Prince, would fall today. A U.S.-backed peace plan proposing a power-sharing government appeared in doubt.
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Updates: More from the Associated Press
Quotable
We came here to free the people. We will free all the people.
- Guy Philippe, commander of the rebel army

The rebel advance expanded the territory held by a ragtag army of insurgents to include virtually all of the northern region of the country, and drove the nation deeper into chaos. The insurgent leaders vowed that, within two weeks, their compatriots would occupy the entire country.

While it was difficult to gauge the extent and momentum of the rebellion - the insurgents have refused to specify the exact size of their force - the seizure of Cap-Haitien was a major blow to Aristide. It throws into question whether a U.S.-backed peace plan that would create a power-sharing government could save the country from further mayhem.

"We came here to free the people. We will free all the people," Guy Philippe, the 36-year-old commander of the rebel army, said in an interview Sunday evening. He estimated that 12 people were killed in taking the city, a figure that was impossible to confirm.

"We are ready to die for Haiti," he said. "This is our advantage. No one wants to die for Aristide."

There was no immediate reaction from Aristide, who dissolved Haiti's army a decade ago and has no significant military force to rally against the rebellion.

Paulda Petime, a 23-year-old rebel dressed in camouflage, a bulletproof vest and a steel helmet, who said he helped lead about 200 rebels arriving from Gonaives, the city where the uprising began Feb. 5, was even more upbeat than Philippe, predicting that the rebels would take the capital, Port-au-Prince, today.

### Greeted by residents

As machine-gun fire crackled through the streets of Cap-Haitien, which has a population of about 500,000, residents greeted the arriving rebels with Creole chants of "down with Aristide" and "long live the army." The rebels drove straight into the square next to the city's police headquarters, the chief symbol of central government power, at about 10 a.m., and declared the city liberated.

Residents of the city, which has been on edge for weeks as rumors swirled that the rebel forces that control Gonaives would march in and take control, poured into the streets and set fire to the police headquarters.

"Aristide is a dictator," said Jean Robert, 42, as the police station glowed orange behind him. "He was in hell, and the devil put him out because he was so wicked."

The capture of Cap-Haitien is the biggest blow yet to Aristide as he contends with an uprising that has left more than 60 people dead.

Political strife has gripped Haiti since 2000, when flawed legislative elections led opposition groups to boycott the presidential election later that year. The political turmoil increased as a range of Aristide opponents, from peaceful dissidents to those with more militant aims, held rallies and marches in the fall, demanding that Aristide step down. The protests boiled over into violence when a gang once loyal to Aristide in Gonaives revolted against him.

Bolstered by notorious figures from the country's bloody past, the rebels claim to have steadily gained strength, although their exact numbers remain unclear.

### Descent into chaos

A few hours after the rebels arrived, the city descended into chaos. At least four people were killed, including a 12-year-old girl, according to a doctor at the city's hospital.

The dead also included three men believed to be supporters of the president's party, Lavalas. Petit Homme Roland, a local resident, brought two men wheeling a coffin atop a wheelbarrow to collect the body of his cousin, Robinson Dorville, a 20-year-old Lavalas militant who Roland said was gunned down by rebel soldiers.

Hundreds of people streamed to the city's port, throwing sacks of rice onto any conveyance they could find - wheelbarrows, bicycles and baby carriages.

Residents also stormed the police station, taking anything that was not nailed down - beds, televisions, radio sets, file cabinets.

Rolex Pierre, 22, took a riot shield and helmet.

"Every year, I want to remember what happened here," Pierre said, holding his mementos aloft.

Richard Estimable, the head of a pro-Lavalas militant group, fled the city along with other top Aristide supporters by hijacking a small plane from the airport, said Jaques Jeannot, manager of Tropical Airlines in Cap-Haitien.

Seven people, two of them armed with AK-47 assault rifles, stormed into the airport shortly after 10 a.m., Jeannot said, and hijacked a Dash 8100 plane that was sitting on the tarmac waiting for passengers for a scheduled flight to Port-au-Prince.

"They got in and demanded the pilots take them to Port-au-Prince," Jeannot said.

While Philippe basked in the seizure of Cap-Haitien, he seemed more sober about its long-term significance.

"This is not a victory," he said. "No one is winning. Haiti is losing. So I am just calling it another step along the way to freeing Haiti."

From the Feb. 23, 2004 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel