Haiti ex-soldiers seize Aristide's old compound
Thursday, 16 December 2004
Haiti ex-soldiers seize Aristide's old compound
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Dec 15 (Reuters) - Some 100 former soldiers who helped lead a revolt against ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide seized his abandoned residence on Wednesday and said they would make it their headquarters.
Thumbing their noses at U.N. troops stationed nearby, the soldiers said they would use Aristide's compound in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Tabarre to train a new military to replace the army disbanded a decade ago because of its proclivity for coups and human rights abuses.
"We are going to recruit new soldiers because now we have enough space to train them," said their leader, Remissainthe Ravix, dressed in military camouflage and wearing a sidearm.
He said his group would conduct a voodoo ceremony to exorcise the ghosts of people he believed Aristide had killed.
Aristide lived on the sprawling, tree-filled compound until he was forced into exile on Feb. 29 by the rebellion and by U.S. and French pressure to quit.
The rebels still control large swaths of the poor and unstable Caribbean country despite the presence of a 6,000-strong U.N. peacekeeping force.
There was no immediate reaction from the Brazilian-led U.N. mission, which has come under criticism for not halting a surge in violence by disarming the disbanded soldiers and the rival gangs armed by Aristide to prop up his rule.
Outside the compound, the ex-soldiers set up a roadblock 100 yards (metres) from the outlying buildings of a university where the United Nations has its main military base. They let a convoy of U.N. troops through without question.
Ravix said his force did not need U.N. approval or the authorization of the interim government of Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, appointed after Aristide left.
Haiti's 8 million people are sliding deeper into anarchy. Political violence has killed 200 people since early September and two severe floods have killed 6,000 since May.
On Tuesday U.N. troops fought their way into Cite Soleil, a lawless slum in the Haitian capital, in their first attempt to end a killing spree by warring street gangs.
One Cite Soleil resident said staunch Aristide ally and gang leader Dread Wilmer was killed overnight when he tried to break through a U.N. cordon in the shantytown. U.N. officials said they had no reports of deaths.
