Rebels seize Haitian city | Globe and Mail

[Ediacara]

Rebels seize Haitian city
Associated Press

Gonaïves, Haiti — Hundreds of people looted a smouldering police station on Friday, a day after an armed opposition group took control of Haiti's fourth-largest city in the biggest uprising yet aimed at the overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

“The revolution has begun,” declared Dormessan Philippe, a 27-year-old in the crowd milling outside the police station.

At least seven people were killed in Thursday's attack — four civilians and three police officers — and 20 were wounded, according to the Haitian Red Cross. The four were anti-government militants killed in gunbattles with police, Gonaïves Resistance Front leader Wynter Étienne told Radio Vision 2000.

Mr. Étienne's group set ablaze a police station, the home of pro-Aristide Mayor Stéphan Moïse and a building housing a gas station and other businesses belonging to Mr. Moïse.

More at the Globe and Mail

[On the Road]

1. The Situation Confused Me

until I went to WSWS. As usual, they actually explain what's going on rather than just report on some unfathomable "violence":

However, Aristide’s opponents sense that he is vulnerable and hope to convince their patrons in Washington he can be dispensed with. Indeed, Aristide has done such a good job of imposing the demands of the IMF—privatization, the destruction of public sector jobs, and the elimination of price subsidies—that he has nearly used up that one asset that made him a useful tool of imperialism—the popular support he won from Haiti’s impoverished masses because of his outspoken opposition to the Duvalier regime and the military juntas that succeeded it.

---snip

The urgent need to put an end to such horrible social ills is not what motivates the opposition movement. It is led by a loose coalition of disgruntled former Aristide followers, old figures of the Duvalier era, supporters of the bloody 1991 military coup, and a traditional Haitian elite known for its hatred for the “populace.” Cynically exploiting the mass disillusionment with Aristide, these elements are pushing for his removal from power, so that they can have their turn at plundering government assets.

Lacking any credibility among the popular masses, their hopes of sharing in the spoils of power rest on efforts to so disrupt the country as to render it ungovernable and thereby provoke a U.S. intervention. This was spelt out by a leader of the Student Federation at Haiti University, one Hervé Santilus, who was quoted in the New York Times last week as saying: “We’re just going to keep demonstrating to push Bush and the State Department to come get this toxic garbage out of here as fast as they can.”

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/feb2004/hait-f06.shtml

Seems to be the new line on left-wing leaders in the third world: If you can't beat 'em, make 'em knuckle under to the IMF. Worked with Toledo in Peru.

[Zhade]

2. Kick

:dem: