Violent Uprising Spreads In Haiti

Hundreds of people looted shipping containers Sunday, carrying away television sets and sacks of flour a day after armed government opponents drove police out of this western town in a widening uprising against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Police, meanwhile, withdraw from the larger northwestern city of Gonaives after failing to defeat rebels in street battles that left at least nine dead Saturday, witnesses said.

At least two people in St. Marc were killed Saturday as gunmen seized the police station and set it afire along with the courthouse next-door, residents said. Journalists saw one wounded man Sunday who said he was shot in the chest by a police officer in civilian clothes.

Residents blocked streets in St. Marc with flaming tires, felled trees, barbed wire, boulders and car chassis.

"After Aristide leaves, the country will return to normal," said Axel Philippe, 34, among dozens massed on the highway leading to the town, located south of Gonaives.

Hundreds, meanwhile, carried away spoils including mattresses and iron beams from shipping containers that they pried open at the town's port.

Members of an opposition group known as RAMICOS said they seized control with the help of other Aristide opponents in St. Marc, a town of more than 100,000 people 45 miles northwest of Port-au-Prince, the capital.

To the north in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city, witnesses said police pulled out late Saturday following a day of bloody gunbattles with rebels of the Gonaives Resistance Front who seized control on Thursday.

It was unclear when police planned to return, but the government has vowed to retake control following attacks that it branded acts of terrorism.

At least seven police and two militants were reported killed Saturday in Gonaives. Crowds mutilated the corpses of some police officers — one body was dragged through the street as a man swung at it with a machete, and 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.

Four other police were killed after their vehicle overturned, one militant said on condition of anonymity. He said police also killed two militants who were building barricades. Haitian radio stations reported claims by other rebels that as many as 14 police were killed, but that couldn't be confirmed.

A number of people in both Gonaives and St. Marc said they formed neighborhood committees to aid the militants and keep watch over their areas.

Militants also have attacked police stations in at least five small towns near Gonaives since Friday, 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.

In the capital of Port-au-Prince, meanwhile, tens of thousands of government supporters marched Saturday to mark the third anniversary of Aristide's second inauguration. During the night, they set up flaming tire barricades across the city.

Opposition leaders had planned a protest march in the capital Sunday, but said they canceled it due to security concerns.

Anger has been brewing in Haiti since Aristide's party swept flawed legislative elections in 2000. 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 69 people have been killed in the Caribbean country since mid-September in clashes between police, government opponents and Aristide supporters.

Members of the Gonaives Resistance Front drove police from Gonaives' police station Thursday, then torched the station, the mayor's house and other buildings. At least seven people were killed and 20 injured in those clashes.

About 150 police re-entered the northwestern city Saturday morning, waging gunbattles with rebels in the city, which with its suburbs encompasses about 200,000 people.

The Gonaives Resistance Front used to be allied with Aristide. But it turned against him last year and changed its name from the "Cannibal Army," accusing the government of killing its leader Amiot Metayer to keep him from releasing damaging information about Aristide. The government denies it.

Some gunmen in Gonaives wore the camouflage pants of Haiti's disbanded army. The army ousted Aristide in 1991 during his first term. He was restored in a 1994 U.S. invasion and then disbanded the army, replacing it with a new civilian police force.