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Rioting breaks out as Haiti celebrates independence
(DPA)

2 January 2004


PORT-AU-PRINCE - Rioters fired shots on the convoy in which President Jean Bertrand Aristide and South African President Thabo Mbeki were riding in Gonaives, Haiti on Thursday, as violence erupted as the country marked its 200th anniversary of independence, Radio Metropole reported.

Haitian police and South African soldiers accompanying Mbeki on his visit to Haiti returned fire. Aristide and Mbeki were uninjured and returned to the capital, Port-au-Prince, by helicopter.

Ten people were injured, Radio Metropole.

Gonaives, where Aristide delivered only a short speech, is where Haitians declared their independence on January 1, 1804, but it also is home to the Anti-Aristide Front.

Members of the organization poured motor oil over streets of the city and spread excrement over the main square in Gonaives overnight Wednesday, causing several police vehicles to crash.

They also took control of a neighbouring town to the north, Gros Morne, on Thursday after burning the police station there to the ground and injuring two police officers, radio reports said.

More clashes occurred Thursday in the capital where police fired tear gas on demonstrators. Several demonstrators were injured, cars were overturned and demonstrators put up burning barricades. One radio reporter described the scene as a battlefield.

A massive police presence in the capital prevented thousands of anti-Aristide demonstrators from reaching the national palace where Aristide and Mbeki were holding a ceremony earlier Thursday. Aristide repeated his demand that France, the former colonial power, pay Haiti compensation totalling 21.7 billion US dollars (17.4 billion euros).

Mbeki said the struggle for freedom waged by Haitian slaves, who drove out the France 200 years ago, were an example for the liberation of blacks all over the world. Mbeki was invited to participate in the celebrations because South Africa is marking the 10th year of the fall of the Apartheid regime.

In Gonaives the anti-Aristide front is composed of former Aristide followers whose leader, Amiot Metayer, fell out with the president and was found murdered in September.  The opposition in Haiti is demanding the resignation of Aristide, accusing the president of corruption and misuse of power. In Port-au-Prince mostly students are taking part in street protests.

Thursday’s violence follows clashes in recent weeks that have taken the lives of 15 people and injured many others.

Haiti, the second oldest nation on the American continent after the United States, got its independence when black slaves kidnapped from Africa fought off Caribbean French colonialists. The country never achieved stable development and is by far the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

 



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