In the boldest display of their anger since President Jean-Bertrand Aristide departed Sunday, thousands of Aristide supporters marched Friday on the U.S. Embassy to demand his return and accuse the U.S. and French governments of spiriting away their leader.
“Bush is a terrorist!” chanted the swarm of young men who poured out of seaside slums to vent their wrath. Protesters wearing T-shirts with the former priest’s image on them vowed to keep up the pressure until Aristide returns from the Central African Republic.
Aristide left Haiti early Sunday on a U.S.-chartered flight after an all-night arm-twisting session by foreign diplomats to persuade him to leave. Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president, has said he was forced out by the United States in what he called a “modern kidnapping.” U.S. officials have said that, fearing a bloodbath between approaching rebel forces and armed street gangs loyal to Aristide, they strongly suggested that he resign for the good of the country.
Several dozen U.S. Marines who are part of a 2,000-soldier multinational force stood by the embassy but made no move to disperse the crowd Friday. Several shots were fired, but it was unclear whether the embassy defenders fired any of them.
Commerce slowly has resumed in Port-au-Prince in the past two days, although schools remain closed and roving gangs continue to pillage businesses owned by those who fought for years for Aristide’s ouster. Smoke billowed out of a food-processing plant in the capital’s industrial park, prompting fears of an explosion at a neighboring oxygen-bottling enterprise, the country’s only producer of hospital respiratory supplies.
Gangs seize aid vehicle
The armed gangs even have targeted humanitarian aid agencies. A vehicle used by Food for the Poor, a Florida-based religious charity that sent a team to assess losses from shipping containers looted at the port this past week, was stolen at gunpoint. The thieves, whom driver Yvon Bulot described as three pro-Aristide thugs, demanded $5,000 for its return.
A seven-member committee of Haitian leaders was selected Friday to appoint a new prime minister as soon as this weekend and establish an interim government for the troubled nation.
Those scrambling to put together the government say speed is of the essence because remnants of Aristide’s Lavalas Party continue to incite armed loyalists to ransack and burn opposition businesses while there is neither a reliable police force nor a government to take charge amid the chaos.
Opposition leaders have accused lame duck Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, an Aristide ally, of fomenting the armed gangs to rampage. After Neptune used state-run radio and television Tuesday night to suggest that Aristide supporters stand firm in their opposition to a leadership change, armed rebels and militant students broke into and looted the broadcast headquarters.
There also have been what appear to be reprisal killings of pro-Aristide militants, blamed on armed rebels who arrived in the capital Tuesday after laying siege to the northern half of the country and pressuring Aristide to leave.
Rebels still armed
Rebel leader Guy Philippe, who promised two days ago to disarm and depart, was still in Port-au-Prince on Friday, although keeping a low profile. One senior aide in his ragtag band of gunmen and wanted criminals, former Haitian ambassador to the Dominican Republic Paul Arcelin, said the rebels would hold on to their weapons until Aristide’s gangs were disarmed.
A Tripartite Commission was named to launch the interim government-building process. It includes a Cabinet minister formerly aligned with Aristide, Minister for Emigre Affairs Leslie Voltaire, as well as former Sen. Paul Denis of the opposition Democratic Platform and a United Nations mediator, Adama Guindo.
On Friday, the commission named the seven-member Council of Sages.
Supreme Court Chief Justice Boniface Alexandre was sworn in as interim president, a figurehead position, three hours after Aristide left Sunday. He will work with the council, composed of civil society leaders who will be ineligible to run in the elections they are to organize. The council has been envisioned as a consultative body that will choose the prime minister and with him a new Cabinet and then advise the executive branch in the absence of a legislature.
