Foreigners flee Haiti as violence mounts

SCORES of foreigners, including missionaries and aid workers, streamed out of Haiti yesterday, fleeing a surging rebellion and mounting violence in government-held areas.

Police deserted northern outposts and rebels threatened new attacks.

Pro-government militants torched 15 homes in the western port of St Marc last night, and three people died in the blazes.

After the US government on Thursday urged Americans to leave the poor Caribbean nation, more than 200 Americans, French and Canadians stood in a long queue at Toussaint Louverture International Airport.

“We knew that it was right for us to leave. It’s just hard,” said Nancy McWilliams, an 18-year-old Canadian, who abandoned a volunteer job at a children’s home.

The US government placed air marshals on all American flights in and out of Haiti, said officials in Washington concerned about the possibility of an airline hijacking.

While no foreigners have been injured or killed in the uprising, which has claimed the lives of at least 60 Haitians, armed men have threatened missionaries and journalists.

The newly-appointed leader of a loose alliance of three rebel groups, Guy Philippe, said he plans to attack the northern port city of Cap-Haitien during carnival celebrations which run until Tuesday.

Philippe was President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s police chief in Cap-Haitien but fled in 2000 when he was accused of plotting a coup.

Aristide said he could not negotiate with “terrorists”, though opposition leaders deny his charges that they back the rebels.

“If you are talking about the opposition that is publicly supporting terrorists, don’t think I will have the irresponsibility of handing them over such a (prime ministerial) post,” he said.

Opposition leader Evans Paul said: “It will be difficult for us to accept any proposal that doesn’t include Aristide’s resignation.”

However, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide maintains that he is ready to die to defend his country against the uprising, indicating he plans to cling to power.

Six truckloads of armed gangsters drove into the city of St Marc, west of capital Port-au-Prince, on Thursday night, American missionary Terry Snow said, adding that 15 Americans in his group of 20 missionaries had left the country this week.

“Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day and night in St Marc and the police are doing nothing,” said Mr Snow.

He said the city has been terrorised by Aristide partisans from the “Clean Sweep” gang since police won the city back from rebels last week.

US Ambassador John Maisto has said that Haiti’s crisis “is due in large part to the failure of the government of Haiti to act in a timely manner to address problems that it knew were growing”.

Mr Aristide has lost support since flawed elections in 2000 that led international donors to freeze millions of dollars in aid.

The uprising that began on February 5 is led by a gang who say they were armed by Mr Aristide to terrorise his opponents in Gonaives. They turned on Haiti’s leader after gang leader Amiot Metayer was killed in September, saying he was silenced to stop him spreading damaging information about the president.

The rebels were joined in recent days by a group of ex-soldiers and a death squad leader from the Haitian army that ousted Mr Aristide in 1991. He disbanded the army after he was restored to power in 1994 by a US invasion.