Police reinforcements fought bloody battles with gunmen as they tried to retake Haiti's fourth-largest city Saturday from rebels who seized it two days earlier in a challenge to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
| I imagine the cops will eventually succeed, at the cost of piles of corpses. It's kind of Haitian tradition... |
At least three police were killed, and crowds mutilated the corpses. One body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete. A woman cut off the officer's ear. Another policeman was lynched and stripped to his shorts, and residents dropped a large rock on his corpse. Rebels said they killed 14 police officers, Haitian radio stations reported; but the claim could not be confirmed. The uprising appeared to be spreading. Armed Aristide opponents seized the police station in the west coast town of St. Marc on Saturday, firing into the air and chasing police away, private Radio Kiskeya reported.
| That sounds like a hopeful development... |
Militants also have attacked police stations and forced out police in at least five small towns near Gonaives, Haitian radio reports said. Judge Walter Pierre told private Radio Ginen that armed men were occupying the police station in the town of Anse Rouge on Saturday and had confiscated weapons. The rebellion had not yet reached Port-au-Prince, the capital, where throngs of government supporters marched Saturday to mark the third anniversary of Aristide's second inauguration.
| "Jean-Bertrand, we will defend you with our blood!" |
Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000.
| "Flawed" is the same thing as "crooked" in this case... |
The opposition refuses to join in any new vote unless Aristide resigns, which he refuses to do before his term ends in 2006.
At least 61 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since mid-September in festivities clashes between police, government opponents and Aristide supporters. |