'Uprising of the people' engulfing Haiti's north

As rebels call on the president to step down, the government retakes one city and says it plans to lay siege to another.

MIAMI - When members of a slum gang revolted against police in the port city of Gonaives on Thursday, it seemed like yet another outbreak of violence that would likely fizzle out within a few hours.

Tough-looking riot police were called in with heavy weapons to restore order.

But when the 150-man unit tried to enter the city, it was met with a barrage of gunfire and forced to retreat, taking an unknown number of dead and injured with it.

Five days after the government lost control of Haiti's fourth-largest city, the country appeared to be in the grips of an armed insurrection, which threatened to cut the capital, Port-au-Prince, off from the north of the country.

"There is a general uprising of the people," said Jean-Claude Bajeux, Haiti's most respected human rights activist and Aristide critic. "This is the beginning of the end for Aristide."

Over the weekend, police were also chased out of the city of St. Marc on the main highway a few miles south of Gonaives, in Artibonite province. Police restored control there Monday, but not before angry crowds looted the city's port, carrying off televisions and sacks of flour. There were unconfirmed reports that police also abandoned their posts in nine other towns.

Leaders of the Artibonite Resistance Front, a coalition of antigovernment militants and civic activists who once supported Aristide, called on Aristide to step down in radio statements. "If you do not leave things will be even worse for you," Butheur Metayer, self-appointed regional police chief and one of the front leaders, said in a radio interview.

The front leaders said they plan to "liberate" the north of the country, creating an independent republic. They pledge to turn in their guns only when Aristide resigns.

While the government remained in control of the rest of the country, officials conceded that they underestimated the resistance in Gonaives. Fearing further bloodshed if police tried to retake the city by force, officials said they are instead planning to lay siege to the city of 200,000.

"We could take it, but nobody wants a massacre," said Haitian Cabinet minister Leslie Voltaire.

The government finds its forces stretched thin. Haiti has only 3,500 police for its population of 8-million - and no army.

The government also blamed opposition bias in the media for exaggerating the instability. "They are inflaming and disinforming the population," said Ira Kurzban, a Miami lawyer who represents the Haitian government.

Though the Resistance Front is made up of only a handful of armed men, it appears to enjoy support from townspeople in Gonaives.

"There are thousands of us," said Jean-Charles Arios, 30, a computer technician and front spokesman interviewed in Gonaives in December. The front also included civic leaders and local professionals, he said.

Like many front members, Arios is a former Aristide militant. "Today," he said, "we have to get rid of Aristide and his criminal gang."

Aristide's government has been buffeted by almost daily street protests, which began in December and have claimed more than 50 lives. The discontent stems from allegations of vote fraud by Aristide's Lavalas Family party during the 2000 elections.

Diplomatic efforts to help mediate a solution have so far failed.

The latest violence in Gonaives was the bloodiest so far. As many as 14 police officers and civilians were reported killed there over the weekend in the shooting, and there were several lynchings by the front and its supporters.

Residents paraded the mutilated bodies of two dead officers in the streets, taking swings with a machete at the corpses. Several of the victims were bystanders caught in the crossfire between front fighters and police.

The government denounced the violence in Gonaives as a "terrorist attack," linking it to a larger opposition political movement that has called for Aristide's resignation since December.

Opposition leaders deny any involvement, saying they continue to support peaceful efforts to remove the government, such as protest marches. They blame the violence on the government, pointing out that the Resistance Front is composed of former Aristide allies armed by the government.

Some of the front leaders belong to a former pro-Aristide gang known as the Cannibal Army, once headed by Metayer's brother, Amiot Metayer, murdered in mysterious circumstances last September. His brother and other former leaders accuse Aristide of being behind his death.

The front was created after Metayer's death and has battled the police ever since from its stronghold in the seaside Raboteau slum. Residents complain that the government disbanded the local police force, replacing it with a heavily armed Special Brigade of police, now accused of carrying out executions and torturing detainees.

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