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Posted 3/1/2004 12:36 AM Updated 3/1/2004 12:38 AM
|  | RELATED STORIES |
Latest news
|  | Haiti faces long road to democracy
| Aristide's claim troubles African host
| Activist: Aristide says U.S. led coup
| White House denies coup claims
| Aristide heads to Africa
| U.N. votes to send force
| U.S. sends Marines to Haiti
| Looters seize streets of Port-au-Prince
| Crisis in Bush's hands
| White House lauds departure
| Chief justice claims power
| Leader survived years of tumult
|  | BEYOND WORDS |
Multimedia
|  | Audio gallery: After Aristide
| Photo gallery: Rebellion in Haiti
| Video: French troops arrive in Haiti
| Video: U.N. votes to send troops to Haiti
| Video: Chaos in capital after resignation
| Video: Rebel leader Guy Philippe
|  | RESOURCES |
Background
|  | Graphic: Haiti file
| Timeline of events
| Who's who in Haiti
| Country overview
| U.S. State Dept.: Haiti profile
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Looters seize streets of Port-au-Prince By Jim Michaels, USA TODAY PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Crouched on the second-floor terrace of the Palace Hotel, lawyer Frederick Denize II watched as this city's streets became a battlefield. Bands of armed gangs loyal to ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide ran down the avenues with guns, sticks and machetes. They clustered at a police station and fired on the building. Hundreds of looters smashed through the locked door of a store across the street from the hotel and swarmed inside. The popping of small arms filled the streets. There was so much shooting it was hard to tell where it was coming from. "Are (peacekeepers) waiting for everything to be looted before they come in?" Denize, 47, asked. "In the past two days, (rioters) could've killed all of us." A contingent of U.S. Marines, an advance party of a larger international force, arrived late Sunday. Prior to that, others had time to help themselves. When news spread of Aristide's departure under U.S. guard, out came the "chimeras" — the name given to the armed thugs whom Aristide gave wide latitude to silence his critics. Chimeras clad in bandannas and jeans had been rampaging through the capital city for several days, killing, carjacking and robbing. But at dawn Sunday, the capital was quiet. Residents peeked out windows and stood in doorways, uncertain what would happen. They soon found out. By midmorning, the streets were again filled with rampaging gangs and mobs of looters. At first there was no reaction from police. Most officers didn't fight the rebels outside the capital. They instead went home and left it to the rebels to restore order once they moved into the capital. But the rebels had stayed out of Port-au-Prince. Rebel leader Guy Philippe was leading a convoy from Cap-Haitien in the north to Gonaives. He said the rebels would move into the capital later. To cheers, Philippe yelled to a crowd of supporters: "Aristide's out! He's gone!" In the capital, near the National Palace, men spent almost an hour breaking the locks on the door of a large store. When the door finally gave way, hundreds swarmed inside. Streets were filled with people lugging televisions, computer monitors and small refrigerators. Inmates were freed from prisons and jails around the country. Gangs roving the streets shouted, "Chop off their heads and burn their homes," echoing the war cry of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the general who ousted French troops and torched plantations to end slavery and colonial rule in Haiti 200 years ago. The streets around the Palace Hotel swarmed with looters and gang members. One chimera pointed to a camera on the terrace of the hotel and shouted at the cameraman to stop filming. Amid the chaos, a white pickup screeched to a halt across the Rue Capois, in front of the looted store. After a morning in which looters had rampaged unchecked, the police had arrived. Looters seemed surprised to see uniforms and stopped and stared before realizing the men in the truck were police. The officers, members of an elite anti-riot squad, took cover behind the car, leveled their assault weapons and fired. Looters dropped their goods and ran. Minutes later, three more pickups full of police arrived. The officers raced through streets, tossing aside barricades of burning tires and cinder blocks set up by pro-Aristide chimeras. At each barricade, they jumped from their pickups and fired at fleeing youths. As the police passed, men and boys pulled up their shirts to show that they didn't have handguns stuck in their waistbands. The chimeras soon regrouped. A car full of journalists followed the police before turning toward the outskirts of the city. Dozens of young men on a street corner waved handguns and yelled at the car to stop. When the car sped through, several men fired. They missed. All around the city, frightened residents waited for word on their country's future. "Some people cried" at the news that Aristide had fled, Jackson Thomas, 32, said in La Saline, a garbage-strewn slum that was a stronghold of the former president. "He loves us. He was going to get rid of the slum," Thomas said. In the St. Louis Bourdon neighborhood of the capital, the bodies of two young men traveling in a minibus were all that remained of a confrontation with police. The windshield was shattered by bullets. One body was sprawled outside the vehicle. The bare feet of the second man were sticking out the side door. In upscale Petionville, armed business owners gathered at the police station to protect what remained of their property. "We're trying to keep the peace in Petionville until whoever is supposed to be in charge comes here," Peter Calixtim said.

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