Haiti on brink of civil war

Rebels who overran Haiti’s second city began detaining people identified as supporters of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide today, and said they soon will attack the capital.

There were two attacks on police stations outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, yesterday, independent Radio Kiskeya reported and Aristide supporters began building barricades to protect the city from the rebels.

In Cap-Haitien, where rebels celebrated their biggest victory of a bloody uprising, a rampage of looting continued as rebels detained supposed Aristide militants.

“I am a brick mason, I didn’t do anything wrong,” Jean-Bernard Prevalis, 33, pleaded as he was dragged away, head bleeding. Residents charged he was an Aristide activist and a drug trafficker.

“We’re going to clean the city of all chimere,” said rebel Dieusauver Magustin, 26, using the Creole word ghost to describe pro-government militants.

It was not clear what would happen to those detained. One rebel said they were saving them from lynching. Another, Claudy Philippe, said “The people show us the (chimere) houses. If they are there we execute them.”

Thousands of people were in the streets to continue a looting rampage that began yesterday, when rebel leader Guy Philippe predicted a quick victory over Aristide’s partisan.

“I think that in less than 15 days we will control all of Haiti,” Philippe said in Cap-Haitien, a city of 500,000 on Haiti’s north coast. Sunday’s victory means more than half of Haiti now is beyond the control of the central government.

Sources close to the government said several Cabinet ministers in Port-au-Prince were asking friends for places to hide in case the capital is attacked.

France today urged its citizens to leave the poor Caribbean country, its former colony. The US told its citizens to get out last week.

There are about 30,000 foreigners in Haiti.

The takeover of Cap-Haitien by only some 200 fighters was the most significant victory since the popular uprising began on February 5. At least 15 were killed in yesterday’s fighting.

In a two-pronged rebel assault, rebels quickly engulfed key points in Cap-Haitien, leaving many in ashes. The police station was burned, then looted, as was a pro-Aristide radio station. Thousands of residents rushed to the city’s seaport and carted off goods on hand carts.

“We’re all hungry,” said Jean Luc, 11, who strapped four 110-pound sacks of rice to a bicycle and was precariously trying to pedal it home.

Residents also defaced posters of Aristide, who was wildly popular when he became Haiti’s first freely elected leader in 1990 but lost support since flawed elections in 2000 led international donors to freeze millions of pounds in aid.

Opponents accuse him of failing to help those in need in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest country, allowing corruption and masterminding attacks on opponents by armed gangs. Aristide denies the charges.

The rebels say they have no political agenda beyond ousting Aristide, but the man who started the rebellion, Gonaives gang leader Buteur Metayer, has declared himself the president of liberated Haiti.