Violence in Haiti eases as Aristide supporters gather

Vowing keep rebels from advancing to other Haitian cities, loyalists of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide blocked roads with heaps of scrap metal, boulders and trees to stem a violent uprising that has killed at least 42.

Most of the country returned to relative calm on Tuesday with Aristide supporters looking to the battle ahead. Opponents refuse to participate in new elections unless Aristide steps down.

"We're going to devour them," said Jean-Claude Joseph, 35, standing with arms crossed at a barricade with more than a dozen others at Cap-Haitien, the nation's second largest city and former Aristide stronghold whose support for the president has waned with deepening poverty.

The US State Department authorized the departure of family members and non-emergency employees of the US embassy even though most of the country was unaffected by the uprising. The US government also issued a travel warning to private citizens but few travel to Haiti.

Roadblocks prevented food deliveries to tens of thousands in the north, the UN World Food Program warned from Geneva, and fuel tankers also were blocked. Some gas stations have already run out of fuel in Cap-Haitien, although the capital remained unaffected.

In some areas where gunbattles had died down, neither police nor rebels were present. In the northern town of Ennery, young men played soccer in front of its charred police station, abandoned days earlier. Businesses and schools were closed.

"Everything's blocked," said David Metelus, 22, a mechanic in Ennery.

Police control in three of the 11 towns affected. Reports from the other eight were vague. In Gonaives, rebels continued patrolling the streets but there was relative calm.

Bands drunken pro-Aristide youths threw rocks at passing cars at the edge of northern Cap-Haitien. Others said they were protecting the city's half-million residents.

Remy Charlot, 44, said Aristide militants gutted his restaurant in Cap-Haitien on Monday night.

"Because I criticize the government, that's why they burned my restaurant," Charlot said.

"They came inside. They poured gasoline on all my stuff and they burned it," he said.

After sporadic gunbattles on Monday, police regained control of the port city of St. Marc, 72km west of Port-au-Prince, and nearby Grand-Goave. At least two men were shot in St. Marc and another was allegedly shot and killed by Aristide supporters.

At Dondon, 19km outside Cap-Haitien, police helped by a pro-Aristide militia managed to fight off rebels on Monday and regain control of the town. Aristide supporters then torched houses of nine anti-government activists there, Radio Vision 2000 reported.

The uprising began on Thursday last week in Haiti's fourth-largest city, Gonaives, presenting a dangerous turning point in Haiti's three-year political crisis. A similar revolt in 1985 also started in Gonaives and led to the downfall of the 29-year Duvalier family dictatorship.

Opposition and civilians distanced themselves from the revolt, denying government contentions they were uniting with the rebels to stage a coup.

The US was "pushing very hard for an end to violence," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said on Tuesday. He said the US government was urging Haitian leaders and the opposition to accept help from the Caribbean Community.

Last month, Trinidad's leader Patrick Manning said Caribbean nations were ready to send peacekeepers to Haiti, but Aristide's government rebuffed the offer.

Tolls from witnesses, Red Cross officials, rebel leaders and radio reports indicate at least 42 people, including policemen, have been killed in the uprising.

Haiti suffered more than 30 coups in 200 years, the last in 1991 when Aristide was ousted just months after becoming the Caribbean nation's first freely elected leader.

US Bill Clinton sent 20,000 US troops in 1994 to restore Aristide.