4 More Rebels Killed as Haiti Clashes Continue

Despite continued armed opposition late Thursday, troops loyal to beleaguered President Prosper Avril appeared to have re-established control of Port-au-Prince as both Avril and the U.S. ambassador here accused supporters of the former Duvalier regime of involvement in the attempted coup d’etat Sunday that triggered this week’s turmoil.

Avril’s presidential guardsmen pursued a group of mutinous soldiers who were attempting to seize the national television station late Thursday and killed four of them, according to eyewitnesses. The clash occurred after a day in which the loyal troops appeared to have Avril’s opponents on the run.

‘Strangling the Nation’

After an early morning television appeal to two mutinous army units to end their rebellion and “avoid strangling the nation,” Gen. Avril spent most of the day in negotiations with their unnamed leaders. Soldiers of the two battalions, the Leopards and the Dessalines, had threatened to burn down the city or blow up the presidential palace if Avril did not resign.

Aided by gangs of street youths, the dissident soldiers underscored their demand by erecting dozens of burning barricades of rubbish and old tires on the capital city’s main thoroughfares Thursday morning.

Frightened civilians abandoned the streets as members of the Presidential Guard swept down on the barricades. One man was shot to death and another was injured at one of the downtown barricades. Counting the killings of the four mutineers at the television station late in the day, Thursday’s violence brought the number of known deaths in this week’s troubles to 10.

Shots in the Air

By midday, the guards appeared to be in effective control of the city. A small detachment of Leopards, many of whose 600 men reportedly have deserted their mutinying comrades, fired threatening shots in the air outside the national television station but quickly retreated as guardsmen raced to the scene in a cannon-bearing armored car and two trucks.

Members of the 800-man Dessalines Battalion, notorious here for involvement in the November, 1987, election-day massacres as well as the smuggling of drugs and contraband, withdrew to their barracks after the guards demolished their barricades. The Dessalines barracks abuts the rear of the presidential palace.

Avril’s surprise television broadcast at 3 a.m. Thursday appeared to be aimed primarily at calming the rebel army units. He appealed to their “patriotism to avoid brothers in arms tearing each other apart and to avoid our army being torn to pieces.”

He blamed the attempted coup Sunday on “a few superior officers (who) had wanted to overthrow the government to re-establish an authoritarian regime against which the people rose up on Feb. 7, 1986.”

That was the date on which President-for-life Jean-Claude (Baby Doc) Duvalier fled into exile, ending almost 30 years of a brutal family dictatorship.

In an uncharacteristically open gesture, U.S. Ambassador Brunson McKinley visited Avril at the palace later in the day to express American support. The embassy issued an unusual statement quoting McKinley as telling Avril, “It now appears likely that exiles connected to the former (Duvalier) regime were involved in the coup attempt.” The statement continued, “It would have been a disaster for the Haitian people if the coup had succeeded.”

Largely Symbolic Step

Avril also made a special effort to take a largely symbolic step toward the democratization that the United States has called for as one of the conditions for restoring aid to Haiti. He called in as many as could be found of the nominees of the country’s new Electoral Council that will supervise Haiti’s next attempt at democratic elections and had them sworn in.

Four of the nine nominees were unable to reach central Port-au-Prince because of the turmoil, but by swearing in five of them, the Avril government took a significant step, since the council will set the date and procedures for the elections, probably within a year.

Except for the few incidences of military activity and continuing shows of force by the patrolling Presidential Guard, the streets of Port-au-Prince were all but deserted throughout the day. Businessmen said the situation remained too uncertain to risk opening shops and factories.

Only a handful of the several hundred workers who make baseballs for the U.S. market at an industrial complex near the almost deserted airport showed up for work, and several other assembly plants that produce clothing for export to the United States sent most of their workers home.

“We would have to be crazy to get involved because they have the guns,” said one 39-year-old manufacturer.

Another said he had sent his workers home early every day this week.

“If this isn’t resolved soon, it will be a disaster for us,” he said. “One day out, OK. It’s like a snowstorm up north. But a whole week and we have a big problem.”

Like a number of other civilians interviewed in the city, the businessman expressed support for Avril because “he is our last hope for democracy.”

“All of his behavior during this crisis is the behavior of a civilized man, not the behavior of a dictator,” he said. “I’m not seeing a bloodthirsty guy.”

Avril, 51, took power in a coup staged by populist army enlisted men last September. He has since cashiered a number of senior officers suspected of corruption or involvement in the drug trade. Several days before the most recent coup attempt, he dismissed four senior officers who were rumored to have drug connections.

Diplomats here believe that the dismissals may have triggered the coup and the subsequent rebellion by officers and enlisted men who may have feared they would be next in the anti-drug sweep.

Drug connections inside the army to former Duvalier supporters is suspected by many Haitians and foreigners, who point out that many of the men of the old regime also are believed to be involved in drug operations.

“It is to their advantage to derail any steps toward democracy, because they can thrive only if they control the government or if it is so weak they can dominate it,” said a diplomat.

Avril came to power tainted by years of close association to members of the Duvalier family as their chief financial adviser. But his pledge upon being named president to lead the country to “irreversible democracy” was widely accepted as convincing evidence of his break with the Duvalierist past.

He has since taken enough steps toward that goal to convince the United States that he is meeting the four conditions that Congress has set for renewing aid: observance of human rights, cooperation in the drug war, steps toward economic progress and progress toward a credible transition to a democratically elected civilian government.