Violence spreads in Haiti - government says attempted coup

[ringmastery]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/10/international/americas/10HAIT.html

SAINT-MARC, Haiti, Feb. 9 — An armed uprising spread on Monday to nearly a dozen towns in western and northern Haiti, the strongest challenge yet to President Jean- Bertrand Aristide.

At least 41 people have been killed since last week in what the government says is an attempted coup.

After sporadic gunbattles, the police regained control of Saint-Marc, an important port city 45 miles west of Port-au-Prince. At least two men were shot and another was reportedly shot and killed by Aristide supporters. His body was left in the road.

In the first visit by a senior government official to any of the 11 affected towns, Prime Minister Yvon Neptune inspected the charred remains of the Saint-Marc police station on Monday.

"The national police force alone cannot re-establish order," Mr. Neptune said in an appeal for calm. On Sunday, he told state television, "The violence is tied to a coup d'état."

The uprising, which began last Thursday in Gonaïves, is widely seen as a significant turning point in Haiti's long political crisis. A similar revolt in 1985 also began in Gonaïves, and led to the ouster a year later of the dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier and the end of a 29-year family dictatorship.

"We are in a situation of armed popular insurrection," said an opposition politician, Himler Rebu, who led a failed coup in 1989 against Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril. He said he had no part in the current uprising.