Port-Au-Prince (Haiti): UN peacekeepers used rubber bullets and tear gas to chase away hungry Haitians who stormed the presidential palace on Tuesday demanding the resignation of President Rene Preval. The riots over soaring food prices turned into looting as terrified residents huddled inside.
The angry protesters tried to break into the presidential palace on Tuesday morning by charging its chained gates with a rolling dumpster, demanding Preval step down.
"We are hungry! He must go!" they cried.
Preval, a soft-spoken leader backed by Washington, was inside the palace at the time, aides said. He has made no public statements since the riots began last week.
Brazilian soldiers in blue UN helmets arrived on jeeps and assault vehicles, forcing the protesters away from the palace gates. But as the protests turned into looting, the outnumbered peacekeepers only watched as people broke into shops around the palace.
After dark, the looting spread. People broke into stores and factories on a road to the airport, witnesses said, amid blackouts reported from Port-au-Prince's center up through its densely populated hills.
Frightened residents barricaded themselves behind locked doors.
On one rain-drenched street, a group of men swarmed a slow-moving car and tried to drag its driver through the window. She appeared to get away.
The US Embassy suspended visa services and routine operations on Wednesday because of the violence, and advised Americans in Port-au-Prince and Les Cayes to remain indoors. Embassy buildings were pelted with rocks on Tuesday but there were no reports of injuries to US citizens.
Food prices, which have risen 40 per cent on average since mid-2007, are causing unrest around the world. But nowhere do they pose a greater threat to democracy than in Haiti, one of the world's poorest countries where in the best of times most people struggle to fill their bellies.
"I think we have made progress in stabilising the country, but that progress is extremely fragile, highly reversible, and made even more fragile by the current socio-economic environment," UN envoy Hedi Annabi said Tuesday after briefing the Security Council.
For months, Haitians have compared their hunger pains to "eating Clorox" because of the burning feeling in their stomachs.
The most desperate have come to depend on a traditional hunger palliative of cookies made of dirt, vegetable oil and salt.
PAGE_BREAK
Riots broke out in the normally placid southern port of Les Cayes last week, quickly escalating as protesters tried to burn down a UN compound and leaving five people dead.
The protests spread to other cities, and on Monday tens of thousands took to the streets of Port-au-Prince.
"I compare this situation to having a bucket full of gasoline and having some people around with a box of matches," said Preval adviser Patrick Elie. "As long as the two have a possibility to meet, you're going to have trouble."
The protesters also are demanding the departure of the 9,000 UN peacekeepers, whom they blame in part for rising food prices.
The peacekeepers came to Haiti in 2004 to quell the chaos that followed the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
They helped usher in a democratic transition, but critics say both Preval and the international community have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty.
That could spell trouble not only for Preval, but for Haiti's fragile democracy as well.
"We voted Preval for a change. Nothing happened," said Joel Elie, 31, who like many Haitians is unemployed. "We're tired of it and we can't wait anymore."
While the peacekeepers spend more than US$500 million a year in Haiti, the World Food Program has collected less than 15 per cent of the US$96 million it says Haiti needs in donations this year. The WFP issued an emergency appeal Monday for more.
Meanwhile, new customs procedures aimed at collecting revenues and stopping the flow of drugs has left tons of food rotting in ports, especially in the country's north.
In a country where almost all food is imported, cargo traffic from Miami ground nearly to a halt, though shippers say intervention by Preval last month has improved the situation somewhat.
Government officials say the riots are being manipulated by outside forces, specifically drug smugglers who can operate more easily amid chaos and supporters of Guy Philippe, a fugitive rebel leader wanted in US federal court in connection with a drug indictment.
Annabi, the UN envoy, said "people with political motivations" were exploiting the demonstrations, but didn't say who he was referring to.
Many in the crowds are demanding the return of the exiled Aristide, and thousands showed up Monday for a rally by a key Aristide ally, the Rev. Gerard Jean-Juste, in the oceanside slum of Cite Soleil.
Comments
0 comment