Reply #31: The Rebels are openly led by Guy Phillippe.

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Do you defend the Rebel terrorism?


Rising Stakes In Haiti as Ex-Dictator's Thugs Take Over Opposition
by Jim Lobe
February 20, 2004

The uprising began Feb 5 when a gang – called the Cannibal Army when it was allied with Aristide and later renamed the Artibonite Resistance Front (ARF) – seized the police station in Gonaives, the country's fourth largest city, and subsequently burned and looted other government offices. Several days later, another anti-Aristide gang seized the nearby town of St. Marc, which has since been retaken by government forces.

Tension in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second biggest city, has risen steadily since yet another rebel group – reportedly led by a former chief of the paramilitary Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH), Louis Jodel Chamblain – seized the Central Plateau town of Hinche after killing the police chief and two of his officers several days ago. A total of more than 50 people have been killed to date. The emergence of Chamblain, who apparently slipped across the border from the Dominican Republic where he has lived in exile for almost a decade, and several other personalities associated with FRAPH, drew calls of alarm from human rights groups both in Haiti and other capitals. FRAPH, the descendant of the feared Ton-Ton Macoutes from the Duvalier dynasty, acted primarily as a death squad for the military after it ousted Aristide in 1990 until the former priest was returned to power by 2,000 U.S. troops in 1994.

Chamblain himself was convicted of involvement in the assassination of Antoine Izmery, a prominent pro-democracy activist, while he was attending a Catholic mass in 1993, after Aristide's return, but as FRAPH leader, he was also implicated in a number of murders that never went to trial. FRAPH was accused by international human rights groups of killing hundreds of suspected Aristide supporters and attacking entire neighborhoods of towns and cities where Aristide was considered particularly popular during the military's reign.

Reports from Hinche indicated that Chamblain is accompanied by Guy Philippe, Cap Haitien's police chief under military rule, and Jean Pierre Baptiste, alias "Jean Tatoune" who was sentenced to life imprisonment for his participation in a 1994 massacre that killed dozens of people in Raboteau. Chamblain is reportedly planning attacks on Cap-Haitien. Chamblain's forces are said to be equipped with machine guns and other weapons that were apparently cached after Aristide's return. The beleaguered 5,000-man Haitian police force – Aristide abolished the Haitian army in 1995 – is no match for such an arsenal, according to reports from Haiti.

http://www.antiwar.com/lobe/?articleid=1995


Aristide is in no position to do anything concrete about the violence with his ragtag band of underfunded out weaponed security forces, some loyal, some actively working against his interests. I find it interesting that Bush can bring in troops to oust Aristide and support the Rebels, but he couldn't find his way to help the Aristide government keep order. Instead the Bush cabal stirred up the opposition, promising them positions in the government.

Aristide has not been tied directly to the violence of some of his 'supporters', but Guy Phillippe ( a man who yesterday said Pinochet was his hero) is the avowed leader of the terrorist Rebels who have violently positioned themselves to usurp power with their brand-new uniforms and M16s, weakly opposed by the Aristide forces' pistols and machetes.