Haiti rebels angry, but disorganized

For eight days now, Haiti's fourth-largest city has been controlled by an armed rebel gang whose barricades on the national highway have cut the country in two. The port city echoes with automatic weapons fire, and dark smoke billows from burning car hulks blocking the streets. As many as 50 people have been killed, and the police have abandoned more than a dozen Haitian cities and towns as the violence spreads.

But interviews with the rebels and opposition politicians indicate that this is not yet an organized national insurrection. Rather, this island nation is seared by pockets of spontaneous violence fueled by anger and revenge - carried out by both anti- and pro-government militia.

"What's happening does not have the character of a national rebellion" says Himmler Rebu, a former Army colonel and critic of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. But he is concerned that the violence will spread. "People are frustrated all over the country. If Aristide's departure is not well-prepared, there could be chaos."

Aristide says that he won't leave before his term ends in 2006: "We cannot continue to move from one coup d'état to another."

Haiti has witnessed more than 30 coups in the 200 years since independence. In 1991, Aristide was ousted within months of being the nation's first freely elected president. Three years later, President Clinton sent 20,000 US troops into Haiti to restore Aristide to power and stop an exodus of boat people arriving on Florida's shores. On Tuesday, the State Department called on US citizens to leave the country because "the Haitian government has failed to maintain order in Port-au-Prince or in other cities." Washington has backed Aristide, but that support appears to be wavering.

Aristide critics here say the unrest is fueled by the government's tolerance of pro-government gangs, drug-running, and police repression and extortion. A four-year stand-off between Aristide's government and opposition political parties over contested parliamentary races in 2000 degenerated into a full-fledged national opposition movement late last year as the economy faltered, protest marches gathered steam, and rights abuses rose.

Aristide continues to call for elections to resolve the crisis, but the opposition - citing security and corruption concerns - claims elections are impossible under his watch. While Washington sat this crisis out, Haiti's papal nuncio, the Organization of American States (OAS) and most recently the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have all tried - without success to date - to negotiate a solution.

In recent days, some of the anger is coming from former Aristide backers. "It would be more accurate to call it a rebellion inside Aristide's camp," says Mr. Rebu, the former Army colonel.

Indeed, the only rebel force - the Artibonite Resistance Front, which controls Gonaives - was until recently a pro- government armed gang the National Palace tolerated for years.

"We supported Aristide once. He was our savior. But he betrayed us. We won't put down our arms until he goes," says Ferdinand Wilfort, the front's self-declared "Chief of Police" for Gonaives.

While the armed Gonaives rebels are calling for Aristide's resignation, they are not connected to the political opposition, its leaders contend.

But that hasn't stopped Aristide's traditional enemies - old-time supporters of the 29-year Duvalier dictatorship and members of the brutal Haitian Army he disbanded in 1995 - from taking advantage of the population's dashed hopes.

"This government specializes in lying," says Evans Paul, mayor of Port-au-Prince during Aristide's first term (1991-1995) and frequent victim of Army repression during the 1990s when he and Aristide were allies. Now Paul and his party are in the Democratic Platform, a coalition of parties; unions; and peasant, civic, and business groups which has so far only held marches and called for civil disobedience.

"A lot of people say we should take up arms, but we don't think violence can solve Haiti's crisis. If there are others opposed to Aristide who chose the same methods as his government - guns - we can't do anything about that," Paul says.

The government says the rebels in Gonaives are the "armed branch" of Haiti's political opposition movement. "They have no other objective than the political and social destabilization of the country," said Minister of the Interior Jocelerme Privert this week. "They have guns much bigger than the police, so officers are obliged to flee their posts."

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