[News] Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Massive Protest demanding Aristide's return
in Haiti's second largest city

Haiti Information Project
http://www.haitiaction.net/News/HIP/12_16_4.html
Cap Haitien, Haiti (HIP) - On the anniversary of President Jean-Bertrand 
Aristide's first electoral landslide in 1990, more than 10,000 Haitians 
took to the streets of Haiti's second largest city to demand his return and 
an end to repression against his Lavalas political party. Aristide was 
ousted last February 29th amid charges he was kidnapped by U.S. Marines and 
remains a guest of the Republic of South Africa where he resides.
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Following earlier negotiations with Chilean troops of the United Nations 
and the Haitian National Police (PNH), an agreement was reached with 
organizers to provide security for the peaceful demonstration. One 
organizer stated, "Although we see the UN and the police allowing us to 
demonstrate peacefully today for the return of our president in Cap 
Haitien, we have no illusions that their role could turn repressive once 
again. Even though we are happy for their cooperation today, we cannot 
forget it was the same UN that stood by and allowed the police to kill 
unarmed demonstrators in the capital on September 30th. It is the same UN 
that has allowed the illegal government of Gerard Latortue to fill the 
prisons with Lavalas and has allowed the former military to return and kill 
us."

A huge banner accusing the Group 184 of having orchestrated accusations 
against Lavalas of mounting a violent campaign called "Operation Baghdad", 
led the demonstration. Another organizer of today's demonstration who asked 
not be identified explained, "It was the Group 184 and Apaid who twisted 
the violence following September 30th into further justifying our 
extermination. Everyone knows September 30th began as a peaceful protest 
that degenerated into violence after the UN stood by as police opened fire 
on the crowd. We, in Lavalas, categorically reject the assertions of 
Apaid's puppet Jean-Claude Bajeux, a so-called human rights activist, and 
the international press that there was ever any such campaign by our 
movement. It was a fabrication that fed the violence to justify our 
slaughter and we denounce those who use it to portray our movement as 
gangsters and bandits. Today we reclaim our right to peacefully demonstrate 
to demand the return of our constitutional President Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

Chanting "Aristide must return!" and "We will never accept the kidnapping 
of our president!" thousands of residents poured from the poor 
neighborhoods of Cap Haitien to join the demonstration. The massive crowd 
broke into frenzy at the monument of Vetiere, which commemorates the defeat 
of the Napoleon's armies in 1804, when Moise Jean-Charles joined them. 
Jean-Charles is the founder of a local peasant movement called Movement of 
Milot Peasants (MPM) and the former popular mayor of the town of Milot 
located below Haiti's most famous tourist attraction, the Citadel.

Today's festive and peaceful demonstration in Haiti's second largest city 
stood in stark contrast to the atmosphere of fear and violence in the 
capital of Port au Prince since September 30th. Two days ago the UN and the 
US-installed government stood by as members of the Haiti's former brutal 
military seized the former residence of Aristide in the suburb of Tabarre 
less than a mile from the headquarters of an organization he founded called 
the Aristide Foundation for Democracy. Many in Lavalas considered the 
takeover to be an orchestrated provocation just before the anniversary of 
December 16th designed to fuel further violence and justify increased 
repression against Lavalas.



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