HAITI: US TROOPS IN HAITI CRACK DOWN ON CIVILIAN GUNMEN LINKED TO THE MILITARY REGIME

Record ID: 319971

  • Title: HAITI: US TROOPS IN HAITI CRACK DOWN ON CIVILIAN GUNMEN LINKED TO THE MILITARY REGIME
  • Date: 3rd October 1994
  • Summary: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (OCTOBER 3, 1994) (RTV - ACCESS ALL) 1.CRANE DOWN: EXT. RANSACKED RADIO STATION, OF THE FRONT FOR THE ADVANCEMENT AND PROGRESS OF HAITI (FRAPH) 0.04 2. SV INT. RANSACKED (2 SHOTS) 0.14 3. HAS,GV U.S. MILITARY AND HAITIAN ONLOOKERS OUTSIDE FRAPH HEADQUARTERS 0.19 4. SV/TRACK SUSPECTED FRAPH MEMBER DETA
  • Embargoed: 18th October 1994 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI
  • City:
  • Country: Haiti CARIBBEAN
  • Reuters ID: LVA4OK8NJIOKN493MTOJPAJPUZQX
  • Story Text: United States (U.S.) troops in Haiti backed by tanks and helicopters cracked down on Monday (October 3) on civilian gunmen linked to the military regime who have been blamed for much of the terror in the region over the last three years.

    U.S. military officials said raids would continue on Tuesday on the main paramilitary group, the right-wing Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH).

    U.S. troops stormed FRAPH headquarters on Monday in Haiti's two largest cities and detained 115 people, including 40 in the capital Port-au-Prince, in a crackdown aimed at securing a peaceful transition to democracy.

    U.S. troops also seized a cache of shotguns, rifles, rocket launchers, pistols, hand grenades and explosives at another location.

    Bystanders cheered as, without firing a shot, U.S. soldiers armed with machineguns raided the dilapidated FRAPH headquarters, from where gunmen opened fire on a pro-democracy march on Friday.

    Soldiers said they seized weapons, documents and drugs in the FRAPH raid.

    The crowd later turned on a man suspected of being a FRAPH member and beat him with fists and sticks, until two U.S. soldiers saved the man and put him in an armoured jeep.

    FRAPH leader Emanuel Constant later said the political situation in Haiti was out of control and that Monday's attack on FRAPH heaquarters would have political consequences for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

    International police monitors also began patrolling the pavements with their Haitian counterparts on Monday in the first stage of an ambitious programme to modernise and restructure the notoriously undisciplined Haitian force.

    Meanwhile, 262 soldiers from six Caribbean nations arrived to join U.S. troops as part of a multinational force that will help secure the country.

    The soldiers from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, Antigua, Guyana and Belize -- were flown in from Puerto Rico where they underwent three weeks of intensive training by U.S. and British military instructors.

    Their commanding officer, Colonel Linton Graham of the Jamaican Defence Force, said another contingent from Bahamas would join them soon.


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