Published March 5, 2004
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) — U.S. Marines trained their
rifles down gritty streets and into a teeming market as they
patrolled the Haitian capital with other peacekeepers yesterday,
drawing smiles and a few angry words, but no resistance.
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Hatred is still simmering among various factions nearly a week
after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted in a rebellion
that left at least 130 people dead, with new killings discovered
outside Port-au-Prince.
As the Marines rolled into the looted port area in eight Light
Armored Vehicles and ventured into the crowds, onlookers gathered
around in curiosity but showed no fear.
At one point, a Marine poured a canteen of water over his head
to cool off in the sweltering heat, drawing chuckles from
passers-by.
“I feel much safer now the Marines are here,” said
Frantz Labissiere, 44. “I wouldn’t be here if the
Marines weren’t here.”
But not everyone shared his view. As the convoy passed an angry
knot of people, one youth shouted: “You took our president
— now you’re taking our country!”
Others held up photographs of Aristide, who fled the country
Sunday as rebels neared the outskirts of the capital and the United
States and former colonial ruler France pressed him to resign.
Haiti’s first freely elected leader lost a lot of
popularity in Haiti — and in Washington, which restored him
to power in 1994 after he was ousted in a 1991 military coup
— because he allegedly used militant loyalists to attack and
intimidate his opponents, failed to help the poor and condoned
corruption. Aristide, in exile in the Central African Republic, has
denied the accusations.
The Central African Republic will offer him permanent asylum if
he asks but would find it difficult to pay for his upkeep, the
government said yesterday.
“I can’t say definitively if Mr. Aristide will stay
here or if he’ll go, but if he asks us, we won’t refuse
him,” Communications Minister Parfait Mbaye told The
Associated Press in Bangui.
The Organization of American States announced the establishment
yesterday of a tripartite council that is the first step to forming
a government of national unity in Haiti. The members are Leslie
Voltaire, who was Aristide’s Minister for Haitians Abroad;
former opposition Sen. Paul Denis, a member of the Democratic
Platform coalition; and Adama Guindo, the U.N. resident
representative in Haiti.
