2/10 Haiti Foreign Press Update

Michelle Karshan, Foreign Press Liaison
National Palace, Haiti
Tel: (011509) 228-2058
Fax: (011509) 228-2171
Email: mkarshan [at] aol.com


Haiti: Foreign Press Liaison Update

1. Haiti's Aristide rides a tidal wave of love — and hate (Toronto Star)
2. Two Haitian Towns Retaken,(Washington Post) Gives insight into violence
3. Refugees flee gun battles spreading through Haiti (Chicago Tribune)
4. Excerpts from President Aristide at Cite Soleil on February 7, 2004
5. IMAGES
6. Websites from the Government of Haiti
7. Recent articles of interest on the web

1. Haiti's Aristide rides a tidal wave of love — and hate, Bloodshed backs
resignation calls But president unlikely to go , Oakland Ross, Toronto Star,
February 10, 2004

He's a former Roman Catholic priest who is now married with two young
daughters.

He speaks seven languages, plays the guitar, the saxophone, and four other
musical instruments, and he's both the best loved and the most reviled human
being in the poorest country in the Americas.

Jean-Bertrand Aristide is president of a crowded and beleaguered Caribbean
land called Haiti, now floundering amid violent political insurrection that has
claimed more than 40 lives since Thursday.

Depending on whom you talk to, the 50-year-old Aristide is either the
country's only hope for peace or its most intractable problem.

"Politics in Haiti is so personalized," said Yasmine Shamsie, a political
scientist at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ont., and an expert on Latin
America. "The big question is, will Aristide resign? I don't think he's going
to resign."

Aristide's political opponents demand he surrender power.

Those opponents have agitated with mounting force and violence since tainted
national elections were held in 2000.

Since then, the Organization of American States has attempted repeatedly —
and so far without success — to broker a political settlement between the two
opposing camps, a settlement that would clear the way for new legislative and
municipal elections.

Aristide himself is entitled to remain in office until 2006, and has vowed to
complete his term despite demands by his opponents that he step down at once.
Since late last year, those demands have increasingly been backed by
eruptions of bloodshed and death. Last week, the unrest assumed an alarming new
dimension as armed rebels in western Haiti began seizing towns.

As of late yesterday, the rebels controlled 10 Haitian towns, including
Gonaives, the country's fourth-largest city and a hotbed of unrest.

Although loyal to Aristide, the country's 6,000-member police force has so
far managed to restore government authority in only one of the towns taken by
the insurrectionists, Saint Marc. The country has no army.

Haiti's main opposition group, known as the Democratic Convergence, is now
distancing itself from the armed rebels, but some observers question those
claims.

There is no doubt that both the government and its opponents have close ties
to shady and often violent gangs of thugs who serve their political aims in
unsavoury and sometimes bloody ways.

The man at the centre of the current Haitian firestorm has been both the most
loved and the most hated individual in his country since the late 1980s, or
shortly before he was first elected president.

Born on July 15, 1953, in the coastal town of Port-Salut, Aristide soon moved
with his family to Port-au-Prince, the country's crowded and seething
capital, ringed by immense slums of unnerving poverty.

The young Aristide studied at a school run by the Salesian Fathers. A gifted
student, he eventually earned a post-graduate degree in psychology at the
State University of Haiti and was ordained a priest in 1983.

From the beginning, he worked among the poor and championed their interests.

As curate of a small church perched at the edge of La Saline, the largest and
possibly most benighted of the city's many vast slum areas, he came to be
known as "Titid" to his parishioners and adopted a Creole folk saying as his
personal credo: "Tout moun se moun."

"Every human being is a human being."

In the Haiti of the 1980s, still ruled by an autocratic family dynasty under
Jean-Claude ("Baby Doc") Duvalier, such egalitarian notions were not merely
suspect. They could get you killed.

Aristide survived several attempts on his life in those years, while he
lobbied against Duvalier, who was eventually overthrown in 1986.

A stirring orator with an almost messianic appeal among the poor, Aristide
was elected president of the country in 1990, riding a wave of populist fervour
that was unlike anything seen in Haiti since the late 1700s, when its African
slaves rose up and defeated their French colonial masters, establishing the
world's first black republic and the oldest independent nation in the Americas
after the United States.

With his fiery rhetoric and his support for radical social change, Aristide
unnerved the country's economic and military elite, while also rattling many
policy-makers in Washington.

Few were surprised when he himself was toppled by a military coup in
September, 1991.

Three years later, with a Democrat named Bill Clinton in the White House, the
U.S. forced the Haitian military to surrender power and then deposited
Aristide back in the gleaming white National Palace in Port-au-Prince.

The former left-wing firebrand seemed to have mellowed by then.

"He was definitely toned down from what he was prior to the coup," said
Shamsie. "I remember thinking, `He's come back as an old man.'"

The new Aristide proved willing to chart a more moderate course, agreeing to
a range of neo-liberal economic reforms promoted by the World Bank, for
example. But even a watered-down version of the once-revolutionary priest has been
treated as poison by the country's traditional ruling class.

They are not entirely alone.

Two years ago, the international human rights group Reporters Without Borders
placed Aristide on its list of the world's 35 worst abusers of free
expression, landing him in the company of such champions of democracy as Fidel Castro
of Cuba and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

"There is no doubt that the Haitian state must not only respect rights but
also guarantee those rights," Eduardo Bertoni, the OAS Special Rapporteur for
Press Freedom, said in an interview late last year.

"But there are still cases pending of assassination of journalists."

Shamsie agrees that Aristide's mottled record on freedom of expression is a
cause for concern.

"We needed to hear far more protesting on his part. He should have come out
far, far more strongly about finding who was responsible for killing these
journalists."

So far he has not and, in Haiti, the flames of rebellion continue to mount,
with few signs of a peaceful solution, all of which likely spells more unrest,
more violence, and more poverty for what is already among the world's most
impoverished lands.

"I just see the opposition absolutely unwilling to negotiate," said Shamsie,
"and I don't see Aristide stepping down."

2. Two Haitian Towns Retaken, Armed Revolt Spreads to Country's
Second-Largest City, by Scott Wilson, Washington Post, February 10, 2004

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 9 -- The government of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide appeared to regain ground Monday in its effort to quell an armed
uprising, retaking two of nearly a dozen towns seized by rebels seeking to force
Aristide from office.

Government officials said the Haitian National Police, outnumbered and
outgunned in recent days, had regained control of the central coast city of
St.-Marc, captured by anti-government rebels two days earlier. Police also reoccupied
the town of Grand-Goave along Haiti's southern finger with no reported
casualties.

But the government faced a fresh assault in the north where fighting erupted
on the outskirts of Cap-Haitien, the country's second-largest city, which has
remained relatively calm throughout a four-day armed insurrection. Rebels
briefly seized the police station in Dondon, just outside the city. Officials said
the insurgents were overwhelmed by a combination of police troops and members
of a pro-Aristide militia, which has augmented the thinly stretched
government forces in recent days.

"The population in both cities is for peace, safety and security," Yvon
Neptune, Haiti's prime minister, said in a telephone interview after visiting
St.-Marc and Grand-Goave. "That's why the population has welcomed back the police."


But the mixed results underscored the challenges facing the police force as
it attempts to put down the uprising, which began Thursday in Gonaives, Haiti's
fourth-largest city. The battle is the biggest challenge to Aristide's rule
since he returned to office three years ago. Although the heart of the
rebellion was confined to cities along Haiti's central coast, leaders of the armed
group said Monday that as many as 11 police stations in scattered towns across
the country have come under their control.

Aristide became Haiti's first freely elected president in 1990, only to be
ousted nine months later in a military coup. The United States sent troops to
Haiti in 1994 to restore his administration, resisted at the time by a
paramilitary force sponsored by the ruling military junta. Aristide served out the
remainder of his term, and was reelected in November 2000 on a populist pledge to
lift up Haiti's downtrodden.

But groups opposed to his government have coalesced into a potent force
against his cash-starved administration over the past two years.

The rebel group calls itself the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front
and says it is the armed wing of a civic movement of business leaders, students
and other Haitians who have been calling for Aristide's resignation for
months. Recently, some of their rallies have turned bloody after coming under attack
by groups linked to Aristide's ruling Lavalas Party.

At least 40 people have died during the recent uprising, which government
officials contend is part of an orchestrated effort. The main opposition
coalition, known as the Group of 184, has remained largely silent since the uprising
began. In the past, the group's leaders have declined to condemn the rebels'
violent tactics, which came into public view late last year when they took over
the Gonaives slum of Raboteau.

The rebel group, which formed in Gonaives, 70 miles north of this capital,
comprises a number of former Aristide supporters embittered by the president's
turn against them in recent months. Some of its foot soldiers relied on Lavalas
patronage for their livelihoods, forming a gang-like network formerly known
as the Cannibal Army. But at its upper echelons the group appears to be led by
former members of the Haitian military, dissolved in 1994 when Aristide
returned to power, and the paramilitary group that opposed him.

At least one armed pro-Lavalas group remains in St.-Marc and may have played
a role in retaking the city, which lies 48 miles north of the capital. But
there is no such force left in Gonaives, and 150 Haitian police troops were
overwhelmed Saturday after being sent in to retake the city. Rebel leaders said 14
police officers were killed in the fighting, although government officials
said the number has been exaggerated to boost the rebels' perceived strength.

The U.S. government has been at odds with Aristide's government since
legislative elections in 2000 that were widely considered fraudulent.

3. Refugees flee gun battles spreading through Haiti, by Gary Marx, Chicago
Tribune

(My note: AP has filed photos of refugees fleeing towns threatened by the
opposition. These images are contrary to press reports that portray the
residents as being supportive of the terrorists. You can see those photos at
http://www.news.yahoo.com and click on photos with the word search Haiti)

ST. MARC, Haiti - (KRT) - A stream of frightened refugees flowed out of this
port city Monday as armed supporters and opponents of embattled Haitian
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide exchanged sporadic gunfire in unrest that has
spread to at least 10 towns and cities in this impoverished Caribbean nation.

With the main highway into St. Marc blocked by huge boulders, smoldering
tires and gutted automobiles, many residents fled on foot carrying suitcases
packed with possessions or balancing huge sacks of belongings on their heads.

Two men assisted one ailing woman who had to leave a hospital that had been
abandoned in the newest wave of political violence that began Saturday when
armed Aristide opponents took over the city and killed at least four civilians.

Other refugees said they cowered in their homes for days to escape the
shooting which continued Monday as Haitian police along with armed Aristide
supporters reoccupied the city.

"There was a lot of shooting," said one woman who was fleeing St. Marc with
her seven children. "It's a complete state of lawlessness."

As refugees fled the city, many swept past about two-dozen civilian Aristide
supporters toting hand-grenades, shotguns and machetes at a roadblock. By
mid-afternoon, the men said their armed opponents had strategically retreated and
that they were preparing for a counter-attack at any moment.

"We are ready to die for our president," said Maitre Olvy Emilecar as he
cradled a grenade.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune inspected the charred remains of the St. Marc
police station Monday, after warning a day earlier that the growing violence in
Haiti was "tied to a coup d'etat."

"The population in both cities is for peace, safety and security," Neptune
told The Washington Post after visiting St. Marc and Grande-Goave. "That's why
the population has welcomed back the police."

The escalating violence in St. Marc, 45 miles west of the capital,
Port-au-Prince, is only one indication of the deepening political crisis in this
island
nation that has been beset by military uprisings and endemic poverty almost
since its founding 200 years ago.

Experts say that with no army and only a 5,000-member police force the
Haitian government is ill-equipped to handle the growing revolt, which surged last
week in northern Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, and has spread to towns
in western and northern Haiti.

Some experts link the newest uprising to growing dissatisfaction with
Aristide, who has failed to deliver on promises to improve living conditions in this
nation of 8 million people.

"I do feel that this is on the way to spinning out of control," said James
Morrell, a former Aristide adviser and now critic who heads the Haiti Democracy
Project, a Washington, D.C. think tank. "The rejection of Aristide is deep and
widespread."

The crisis was spawned in 2000 when Aristide's party swept flawed legislative
elections. Since then, the opposition comprised of a disparate group of
businessmen, students and others has refused to participate in any new vote unless
Aristide resigns.

Aristide has refused to step down and insists that he will serve out his
term, which ends in 2006.

"The president continues to call for peace and continues to call on the
opposition to come to the table and through a democratic process come to a
resolution," said Michelle Karshan, Aristide's foreign press liaison.

First elected president in 1990 on a wave of popular support, Aristide was
ousted seven months later in a coup, went into exile in the United States and
later returned to Haiti after 20,000 U.S. troops invaded the island and toppled
a military government.

A former priest, Aristide won re-election in 2000 but his popularity appears
to have fallen in recent years as the economy falters and many Haitians say he
has failed to improve their lives.

The president also has engendered mistrust by reportedly arming gangs of
civilian supporters to solidify his control in major cities. Some residents of St.
Marc said a pro-Aristide gang terrorized civilian opponents.

"What we want is for Aristide to go," said Carlo Racine, a fisherman in St.
Marc. "He hasn't given us anything. He campaigned on the slogan, `Peace in the
head and peace in the belly.' There is nothing so far."

Aristide has denied arming his supporters and many observers believe that he
remains Haiti's most popular politician, especially among the poor. Last week,
tens of thousands of supporters turned out to celebrate the third anniversary
of Aristide's second inauguration.

Some Aristide supporters are calling for an international force to enter
Haiti to restore order and allow the president to finish his term.

"We don't want to fight. We are here for peace," explained Ernst Pascal, a
member of Aristide's Lavalas Party and a local official in St. Marc. "We want
the president to finish out his mandate and then we are ready to have
elections."

The United States has condemned the violence and called on Aristide's
government to respect human rights. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said
Haiti's problems will be solved through dialogue, negotiation and compromise.

Secretary General Kofi Annan said the United Nations "will be stepping up our
own involvement fairly soon" but did not elaborate.

At least 69 people have been killed in Haiti since mid-September in clashes
between police, government opponents and Aristide supporters. The rebellion has
not yet reached Port-au-Prince.

Since last week the Haitian police have abandoned about a dozen towns,
reportedly leaving residents in the hands of armed Aristide opponents.

In the western town of Grand-Goave, some residents fled with belongings
perched on their heads. Insurgents also burned police stations in the northern
towns of St. Raphael and Dondon.

The most serious confrontation occurred last Thursday in Gonaives, a city of
200,000 people, when members of the Gonaives Resistance Front drove the police
from the nation's fourth largest city and repelled a weekend counter-attack
by police. At least 11 police and 7 civilians were killed in the fighting.

Once allied with Aristide, the Gonaives rebels turned against the president
last year after accusing the government of killing its leader.

The rebellion in St. Marc began Saturday when armed Aristide opponents
stormed the police station and burned it. .

Police reinforcements arrived Monday by land and by helicopter and swept the
city for anti-Aristide gunmen. Most stores were shuttered and the streets were
largely empty of civilians.

One top Haitian police official said Monday that the government forces now
controlled St. Marc. But some residents said they feared further bloodshed.

"The people are really scared," said Duquens Destie, an unemployed
31-year-old as he fled the city.

4. Excerpts from President Aristide at Cite Soleil on February 7, 2004 for
inauguration of park (see images of that day in IMAGE section below)

That’s why we are happy to learn that Gonaïves’ population is not alone, the
Police is there with them to free them from the terrorists who set fire.That
work has started and it will continue. That is why the people voted for us so
we can give peace. Peace doesn’t work with terrorists. Peace works with
democracy.

Peace works with Opposition. There is a big difference between political
opposition which we respect, and terrorist opposition which we must bring under
control so no blood is shed, so that they don’t put the country into mourning
again.

Is the message clear? Yes! Respect for political opposition! But if it is
terrorist opposition, the Police, together with the Justice, must bring it under
control so that police stations are not set on fire, so that they don’t burn
poor people’s homes, so that they don’t burn people’s homes, so that everyone
can live in calm, so that they don’t live in worry.

Is the message clear? Yes! Are people in Cité Soleil civilized people? Yes!
Yes! Here is another beautiful example given by people in Cité Soleil which is
a beautiful lesson. At the end of the year, when there were problems in Cité
Soleil, Father Volel came into the National Palace with Cité Soleil’s children.
I sat down with Father Volel and with Cité Soleil’s children, we had a
beautiful meeting. There are people who don’t respect other people, they don’t
think Cité Soleil’s children are civilized. But us, we know that Cité Soleil’s
children are good civilized Haitians. And that is why we were confident that
this meeting would be good.We had a second meeting. After the second meeting, we
saw on television how Cité Soleil’s sons and Cité Soleil’s daughters who had
problems between them worked together, they made a press conference, they made
peace. And it is that peace that came into Cité Soleil that allowed engineers
to continue that beautiful work to give us this beautiful public park. Once
again, thank you for Cité Soleil! Thank you in advance for all other
expressions of peace, of understanding that you will give. Tell Cité Soleil thank you
for me once again please. Tell them thank you again for me! At the end of the
year, if it had been dictatorship, when they saw the problems between Cité Soleil
’s children, what would they have done? What would they have done? They would
have sent people to kill them.

Democracy doesn’t work with violence. Democracy works with understanding!
Democracy works with respect. Democracy work with peace! In that same sense, I
ask, I ask and I demand that every time in a popular neighborhood, whether it is
Cité Soleil, whether it is La Saline, whether it is another popular
neighborhood, every time there is problem, teeth and tongue sometimes bite, do not let
outsiders put gas on the fire to stir the fire, but rather put water to stop
the fire so that we can work together to make peace shine like it has shone in
Cité Soleil.

A Cité Soleil’s child spoke a truth on the radio, and I won’t feel good if I
don’t speak that truth today. Here it is.The Cité Soleil’s child said: "When
we have problems between us in Cité Soleil, right away there are opposition
journalists who come to stir the fire. But when we make peace, we don’t see
them." That shows Cité Soleil’s people’s intelligence. That shows how there are
many great brains in Cité Soleil, great intelligent brains. That is why I ask,
in the name of Cité Soleil, for the press who always speak the truth to
continue to come to see the beautiful work that is done in Cité Soleil, to say it
and to encourage peace without giving lies, without putting gas on fire.

The second truth, I learned it from Cité Soleil’s children, Cité Soleil’s
children whom I sat with. Here is a truth Cité Soleil’s children taught me when
I asked them what was the difference between 1804 and 2004? One of them told
me he will tell me everything they think, starting with a reflection they make
sometimes in the Cité. He said: "When we, in the Cité, think about 1804, about
2004, sometimes we are happy, sometimes we are sad. Why are we sad? Because
we know there are people who despise us. There are people who don’t think we
are people. There are people who don’t respect us, there are people who think
that because we are poor, we are not people like all people. And that is why
they take 1804, they take the zero away in 1804, and that leaves 184, as if the
people is equal to zero.

In the mouth of Cité Soleil’s children, I hear great reflections like that.
That shows that Cité Soleil’s people think a lot. I think that if Cité Soleil’
s children think that in 1804, they take away the zero to keep 184, because
they consider that Cité Soleil’s people are poor like zeros. It is a mistake,
they will have good understanding, good sense so they can pull themselves
together again, to show through their words, through their actions, that this is not
what was really in their heads.

And in this sense, I encourage the 184, and the Opposition in political
parties, and people in Lavalas, and people in the Government, and poor people, and
rich people, and Haitians living in the country, and Haitians living abroad,
so that we all dialogue, so that we all share respect, so that we all share
understanding, to make the country progress, for all the country’s children to be
able to go to school one day, for all the country’s children to be able to
eat until their stomachs hurt, for all the country’s children to have houses, to
have medication when they are sick, to find good hospitals, to find good
roads.

And it is full security we give today and we’ll continue to give, to have
security throughout the country. And then, Cité Soleil’s children will be happy
because they will see a total change in the entire country. That is the message
you taught me when I sat to talk with you, and in your name, I share it with
the entire nation.…We will end with that gesture, to say that all mothers are
mothers, all children are children, all Haitians are Haitians.

On the occasion of the 200th anniversary of Independence, we renew our will
to be as one, TOGETHER WE STAND, so that one’s pain becomes our worry, so that
we never leave one person suffering without trying to help him or her. Whether
it is our brother in the 184, whether it is our brother in the Opposition
political party, their pain is my pain, their suffering is my suffering, whether
it is Lavalas, whether it is rich, whether it is poor, whether it is peasants,
whether it is people living in the provinces or in the cities, one’s pain is
all of our's worry.

We will walk forward together for Haiti to make progress as TOGETHER WE
STAND, in solidarity between all Haitians without distinction. That path is the
path of peace, that path is the path of progress, that path is the path of
security so that we can organize good elections further ahead, for people to respect
the result of the vote in the elections that are coming.

Thank you in advance once again for the elections. Hats off for all political
parties who are working to organize elections, compliments in advance for the
people who will vote in the elections. And meanwhile, we will make beautiful
roads, we’ll do good work to organize beautiful elections so that we have a
good democracy working strong!

Magistrates, deputies, senators, Azec, Casec, all elected ones, you will be
servants, just like the President, the Prime Minister, ministers in the new
Government, or in this Government, we all are servants there to serve Cité Soleil’
s people, poor like rich everywhere in the country. There is the message!
There is the message! There is the message of peace! Hold on tight, don’t give
up! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong! Strong!

5. IMAGES

To see photos from the February 7th pro-government rallies and march, click
on the link below. Any press who would like copies of these, please contact
mkarshan [at] aol.com These photos were NOT taken by me so please do not credit me.
When the page opens, click on the orange button to view the slideshow
http://www.shutterfly.com/osi.jsp?i=67b0de21b3454cd4847d

Huge crowds demonstrate their support for their government while former
soldiers and others terrorize the city of Gonaïves. More photographs taken on
February 7th:
http://www.maehaitiinfo.org/alb7fec04.html

At http://www.haitiaction.net/Media/PhotoG/PaP/index.htm there's a gallery of
images showing the massive pro- Aristide march on February 7, 2004

6. Websites from the Government of Haiti:
National Palace http://www.palaisnational.info
L'Union Newspaper http://journallunion.com/
Ministry of Foreign Affairs http://www.maehaitiinfo.org/
Haiti's Embassy to US http://www.haiti.org
Haiti's National Television (watch the daily news!) http://www.tnhaiti.org/

7. Recent articles of interest on the web:

Opposition movements in Haiti threaten country's stability by Tim Collie,
South Florida Sun-Sentinel http://www.sun-sentinel.com

Haiti: Aristide regime shaken by mass protests by By Richard Dufour, Feb. 6,
2004, World Socialist Website
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/hait-f06.shtml

La CIA déstabilise Haïti, Reseau Voltaire, Jan. 27, 2004
http://www.reseauvoltaire.net/article11918.html

Analysis by the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA)
Unfair and Indecent Diplomacy: Washington's Vendetta against President
Aristide
http://coha.org/NEW_PRESS_RELEASES/New_Press_Releases_2004/04.03_Haiti_Aristid
e.htm

Haiti and the US Game by Tom Reeves, Z Magazine, March 27, 2003
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=2&ItemID=3337