Originally: French Minister Attacked, Rebels Take Haitian Town

French Minister Attacked, Rebels Take Haitian Town


PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) – A gang chased a French minister out of a Haitian slum under gunfire on Monday, while former soldiers who helped oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took control of a southern town and defied U.N. forces to remove them.


One French gendarme was wounded and a French diplomatic source said he saw at least one person killed in the attack.


The reminders of the impoverished Caribbean country’s chronic instability came six months after Aristide, regarded as a champion of the poor, was driven out by an armed revolt and U.S. and French pressure amid allegations of despotism and corruption.


The French diplomatic source said the country’s junior foreign minister, Renaud Muselier, had to be bustled out of the Cite Soleil slum in Port-au-Prince after his entourage was attacked by rock-throwing youths.


When Haitian police fired into the air, gang members pulled out shotguns, pistols and other weapons and shot at the visitors, who had been planning to visit a hospital in the slum that still seethes with anger over Aristide’s departure.


“We are very surprised that we came under attack when we went to help the hospital,” the source, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters.


The violence in the capital, where most of a 2,755-strong U.N. peacekeeping force is on patrol, came after a weekend of trouble in the south that bore echoes of the revolt against Aristide.


Ex-soldiers from the army Aristide disbanded in 1995 attacked a police station in Petit-Goave, 40 miles south of the capital and proclaimed themselves in charge of security.


’NOT AFRAID OF U.N. TROOPS’


A contingent of Brazilian-led U.N. troops, backed by armored cars and helicopters, were sent on Sunday to regain control but withdrew without challenging the former soldiers, who witnesses said numbered around 150.


“We are not afraid of U.N. troops. We are the Haitian military, we are trained to fight wars. They’ll probably kill us, but we’ll fight,” their leader, former army Col. Remissainthe Ravix, told Reuters by telephone.


The former soldiers cleared the police station of the white and blue colors of the Haitian national police and repainted it yellow, the color of the defunct army.


Former army Sgt. Devil Prophete told Haitian radio ex-soldiers had also taken over a pro-Aristide radio station in the southern town of Jacmel.


Interim authorities under Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, appointed by a council of elders to run Haiti until new elections in 2005, sent special police units to Petit-Goave but they took up position well outside town.


Latortue urged the former soldiers to negotiate, but he also indicated that demands for re-establishment of the army might not be met.


“We want to discuss and negotiate with them, but we also want to tell them the interim government doesn’t have the mandate nor the means to re-form the army,” Latortue said.


The interim government has set a deadline of Sept. 15 for all groups holding illegal weapons to disarm.


But Ravix said the authorities had no moral or legal authority to confiscate his men’s weapons. “If our weapons are illegal, then the government is also illegal because it came to power thanks to those weapons,” he said.


 

Originally: Un ancien officier de l?ex-armée se rend à la justice

Un ancien officier de l?ex-armée se rend à la justice


Un ancien officier de l?armée haïtienne, dissoute en 1995, s?est rendu volontairement lundi à la justice haïtienne, a constaté l?AFP.


L?ex-capitaine Jackson Joanis, condamné aux travaux forcés à perpétuité par contumace en septembre 1995, est accusé d?être impliqué dans l?assassinat, en 1994, d?un commerçant proche de l?ancien président Jean Bertrand Aristide, alors en exil.


M. Joanis a été placé en détention au commissariat de police de Pétion-ville (banlieue de Port-au-Prince), où il s?est volontairement présenté en compagnie de son avocat et de quelques proches.


Au moment des faits, il était responsable du service anti-gang de l?armée.


« Je n?ai rien à voir dans cette affaire », a déclaré à la presse l?ancien capitaine. « Parce que je ne suis pas coupable de la mort (du commerçant) Antoine Izméry, je me présente à la justice afin que lumière soit faite et que le mot du droit soit enfin prononcé », a-t-il ajouté.


Expulsé en mars 2002 des États-Unis, où il s?était réfugié après le retour au pouvoir d?Aristide en octobre 1994, M. Joanis avait été écroué au pénitencier national haïtien. Il s?est évadé le 29 février à la faveur des événements ayant conduit à la démission et au départ en exil de l?ex-président Aristide.


D?autre part, la direction centrale de la police judiciaire haïtienne a annoncé lundi l?arrestation de Jean Daniel Jeudy, l?un des présumés meurtriers en avril 2000 du journaliste Jean Dominique.


Jean Daniel Jeudy a été appréhendé à Jacmel, au sud-est de la capitale. Il s?était également enfui de prison le jour du départ en exil de l?ancien président. Plusieurs centaines de détenus se sont échappés du principal centre carcéral le 29 février.