Haitian police retook three towns from rebels battling President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, and the government pledged to win back control of all territory lost during battles that have left at least 42 dead in five days.
The United States State Department on Tuesday urged Americans to leave Haiti ”if they can do so safely”, and the United Nations warned that Haiti faces a major humanitarian crisis.
”We will do what we must to restore order without harming the population,” said Haitian Public Safety Minister Jean-Gerard Dubreuil. He claimed rebels had used civilians as human shields in Gonaives, the first city taken by the armed opposition.
Police forces took back the towns of Grand Goave, St Marc and Dondon after sometimes fierce battles on Monday, media reports said.
Prime Minister Yvon Neptune went to Grand-Goave, where a supporter of the ruling Lavalas party was killed, and St Marc. In both towns there was fighting between supporters and opponents of Aristide and in St Marc between rival opposition groups, reports said.
At least two people were wounded in Dondon where police were helped by armed supporters of the government to regained control of the town.
Armed local insurgents took over about a dozen towns after rebels took up opposition demands that Aristide stand down and attacked the main police station in Gonaives.
However, rebels that now call themselves the National Reconstruction and Liberation Front said they were determined to fight to ”liberate” the whole country.
”The Haitian revolution is on the march,” rebel spokesperson Winter Etienne said in a statement. ”We have decided to no longer live in despair. We will regain our hope for the future.”
The troubles were causing wider hardship in the north. Power has been cut since Monday in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second city, and no cars were on the streets on Tuesday as there was no gasoline.
One opposition leader Andre Apaid blamed Aristide for the violence, calling him ”a dictator and a despot”.
Aristide has been ruling by decree since the country was left without a functioning legislature last year because parliamentary elections have not been held. The populist priest-turned-president has promised polls within six months, but not set a date.
He has also vowed to remain in office until the end of his term in 2006.
Aristide has accused the opposition political groups of favoring a coup d’état against him but opposition parties distanced themselves from the armed opposition.
”We distinguish the popular movement we support demanding the deprture of Jean-Bertrand Aristide from armed rebels with whom we do not identify ourselves,” said socialist Micha Gaillard, a prominent opposition political figure.
”The solution can only be peaceful and unarmed,” he added.
The UN warned on Tuesday that a ”major humanitarian crisis” is looming in Haiti.
”The insecurity and violence make us fear a major humanitarian crisis,” said Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN humanitarian coordinator in Geneva.
In Washington, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the US had no plans to intervene militarily in Haiti.
”Everyone’s hopeful that the situation which tends to ebb and flow down there, will stay below a certain threshold,” Rumsfeld said. ”We have no plans to do anything.”
The US State Department reiterated its support for a diplomatic mediation through the Organisation of American States (OAS) and the 15-nation Caribbean Community (Caricom), and sought Aristide’s commitment to quell the rioting.
Opposition groups and Aristide ”need to focus on reaching a political settlement, maintaining a peaceful dialogue to reach a negotiated solution”, State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher said.
Some political experts, however, urged more direct US involvement in the Haitian crisis.
”When the US is hiding behind the OAS or the Caricom it’s because they are not making any kind of an effort to lead a policy,” said Jim Morrell, director of the Haitian Democracy Project, a Washington-based think-tank.
Morrell said the democratic sector of Haitian civil society needed to be rescued: ”I’m very concerned that … they’ll be squeezed and eliminated, and then Haiti will be like a Sierra Leone or a Rwanda. You won’t have anything left except the feuding gangs.”
The US sent 20 000 troops to Haiti in 1994 to bring Aristide back to power after he was ousted in a coup. He stepped down after a five-year term and was re-elected in 2000. — Sapa-AFP