Haitian police win back three towns

Prime Minister Patrick Manning is ready to send peacekeepers to Haiti. However, the offer which was made to president Jean Bertrand Aristide was refused. Manning’s offer to Aristide was made last month, with the full support of other Caribbean countries, in a bid to end the violence on the island. Yesterday, armed loyalists of Aristide set up fiery barricades and patrolled gritty streets, vowing to attack rebels leading a bloody uprising that has left at least 42 people dead and posed the biggest threat yet to Haiti’s president. Brandishing pistols, bands of drunken youths manned barricades and threw rocks at passing cars in the northern port city of Cap-Haitien. They said they were protecting the half million residents of Haiti’s second-largest city, a former Aristide stronghold where support has dwindled as poverty increases. “The opposition doesn’t want to deal with Aristide, so we know we are going to have to fight them,” said Jesner Jean, 28, manning a barricade of boulders and garbage.

Police have regained control in three of 11 towns but the unrest was taking a heavy toll. Roadblocks have prevented food deliveries to tens of thousands of desperate Haitians, the U.N. World Food Program warned from Geneva, and fuel tankers also were blocked. Some gas stations have already run out of fuel. Aristide partisans were searching for rebels but also lashed out against members of the opposition coalition in Cap-Haitien. Remy Charlot, 44, said Aristide militants gutted his restaurant and several lottery stalls overnight. “Because I criticize the government that’s why they burned my restaurant,” he told The Associated Press. “They came inside. They poured gasoline on all my stuff and they burned it.” After sporadic gunbattles on Monday, police regained control of the important port city of St. Marc, 45 miles (72 kilometers) west of Port-au-Prince, and nearby Grand-Goave. At least two men were shot in St. Marc and another was allegedly shot and killed by Aristide supporters, who left the headless body at the roadside.

Police helped by a pro-Aristide militia had managed to fight off rebels in shootouts Monday 20 kilometers (12 miles) outside Cap-Haitien, at Dondon, officials said. Aristide supporters then torched houses of nine anti-government activists there, Radio Vision 2000 reported. The uprising began Thursday in Haiti’s fourth-largest city of Gonaives, presenting a dangerous turning point in Haiti’s three-year political crisis. A similar revolt in 1985 also started in Gonaives and led to the downfall of the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship. Opposition politicians and civilians distanced themselves from the revolt, denying government accusations that they were uniting with the rebels to stage a coup. “Our means are peaceful,” opposition leader Evans Paul said after a meeting Monday of the Democratic Platform, made up of political groups, civic leaders, clergy and students. The United States was “pushing very hard for an end to violence,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Tuesday. He said Washington was urging the government and opposition to accept help from the Caribbean Community. Last month, Trinidadian leader Patrick Manning said Caribbean nations were ready to send peacekeepers to Haiti, but Aristide’s government rebuffed the offer.