- Title: HAITI: REBEL LEADER GUY PHILLIPE SAYS REBELS HAVE SURROUNDED CAPITAL
- Date: 26th February 2004
- Summary: (W8) PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI (FEBRUARY 26, 2004) (REUTERS) 1. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE IN THE STREET 0.05 2. VARIOUS OF PEOPLE AT THE GAS STATION TRYING TO GET GAS (3 SHOTS) 0.13 3. SLV MAN AT PETROL PUMP 0.18 4. WIDE OF TRAFFIC AT THE GAS STATION 0.21 5. SLV MAN SHOUTING "NO GAS, NO GAS" 0.27 5. SLV PEOPLE WAITING FOR GAS 0.31 6. SLV MAN CARRYING EMPTY GAS CANISTER 0.35 7. WIDE OF "NATIONAL" OIL PETROL STATION 0.39 8. VARIOUS OF CLOUDS OF SMOKE COMING FROM TYRES AND BURNING BARRICADES IN STREET (3 SHOTS) 0.52 10. WIDE OF PEOPLE STEPPING OVER BARRICADES 0.56 11. TRAVELLING SHOT OF BURNING TYRES AND PEOPLE IN STREET 1.03 12. WIDE OF PEOPLE ON THE STREET 1.08 13. TRAVELLING SHOT/ PULLOUT OF MAN IN STREET WITH WEAPON LOOKING TOWARDS CAMERA CAR 1.12 14. SLV PERSON BUILDING A TYRE BARRICADE 1.21 15. SLV BURNING TIRES 1.27 16. VARIOUS OF CITY WITH COLUMNS OF SMOKE 1.35 (W8) CAP-HAITIEN, HAITI (FEBRUARY 26,2004) (REUTERS) 17. SLV ARMED REBELS IN TRUCK 1.42 18. VARIOUS OF REBELS WITH GUNS 1.56 19. WIDE OF REBEL LEADER GUY PHILIPPE AND SOLDIERS 2.03 20. SMV REBEL LEADER PHILIPPE TALKING TO SOLDIERS 2.09 21. SCU (SOUNDBITE) (English) HAITIAN REBEL LEADER, GUY PHILIPPE, SAYING "We just ask people to stay home, in Port-au-Prince. We gave a chance to peace, but Mr. Aristide it seems doesn't understand it. So he refused to leave. So as the opposition leaders there in Port-au-Prince reject the plan because Mr. Aristide refused to leave, so I think we cannot wait anymore to free the people in Port-au-Prince. You now everyday they keep on killing people - innocent people keep on burning houses, businesses so we cannot stand to stay and see Aristide doing all that stuff. So that is why we gave the order to surround Port-au-Prince and our guys are there and waiting for the order to attack." 2.55 22. SLV ARMED REBEL GUNMEN IN STREET 3.01 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
- Embargoed: 12th March 2004 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: PORT-AU-PRINCE, CAP-HAITIEN/HAITI
- Country: Haiti
- Reuters ID: LVA7E7KRQG4PYCFNBPM0YN7DGJWB
- Story Text: Rebel leader Guy Philippe says rebels have
surrounded Port-au-Prince, where tensions are mounting.
Tension mounted in Port-au-Prince on Thursday
(February 26) as people waited in long lines for gas and
burning tire barricades sent up clouds of heavy back smoke.
Nervousness among residents grew on hearing news that
the rebels - already in control of two large Haitian cities,
have surrounded Port-au-Prince and that an attack was
imminent.
Barricades littered garbage-strewn streets in
Port-au-Prince before the expected attack by the rebels,
who accuse President Jean-Bertrand Aristide of being a
corrupt thug and are demanding his resignation. Fewer
pro-Aristide gangs roamed the streets than a day earlier,
when motorists were shaken down for money and mobile phones
at the roadblocks.
The chaos has caused severe gas shortages and schools
were closed and shops were shuttered as many people stayed
home. Some foreigners and Haitians crammed the airport to
flee, fearing commercial flights to and from the country
could soon be suspended.
American Airlines said it was suspending its five daily
U.S. flights to Haiti because employees were having
difficulty getting to the airport, and the airline's last
flight out of Port-au-Prince left on Thursday afternoon.
The rebels warned on Thursday that an attack on the
capital was imminent.
Rebel boss Guy Philippe, leading a band of ex-soldiers
and gang members against Aristide, said his men had
surrounded Port-au-Prince.
"We just ask people to stay home, in Port-au-Prince.
We gave a chance to peace, but Mr. Aristide it seems
doesn't understand it. So he refused to leave. So as the
opposition leaders there in Port-au-Prince reject the plan
because Mr. Aristide refused to leave, so I think we cannot
wait anymore to free the people in Port-au-Prince,"
Philippe told Reuters in the rebel stronghold in Cap
Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city that was taken by the
rebels last weekend.
"Our guys are there and waiting for orders to attack,"
said Philippe, a former police chief. He said he wants to
be in Port-au-Prince by Sunday (February 29) to celebrate
his 36th birthday.
Aristide on Thursday repeated a vow to stay in office
until 2006 when his term ends, setting the stage for a
showdown in the teeming Haitian capital between the motley
band of heavily armed rebels and the president, his
suppo
rters and his ill-trained, 4,000-member national
police force.
More than 60 people have died in the Caribbean country
in clashes that began on February 5 when the rebels started
the revolt by overrunning the western city of Gonaives.
Caribbean countries called on the United Nations on
Thursday to approve the urgent deployment of an
international force to restore order in Haiti. The Security
Council signalled in advance it was not yet ready for such
a move.
A negotiated end to the conflict seems distant.
Opposition political groups, who distance themselves from
the rebels, insist Aristide must quit, throwing a wrench in
U.S.-backed efforts to end the conflict with a
power-sharing accord.
Aristide disbanded the army in 1994 when he returned to
office, backed by an invasion of 20,000 U.S. troops, after
being ousted in a 1991 military coup. So far police
resistance has melted away in the face of attacks by
rebels, who are often welcomed by inhabitants.
Former colonial power France has proposed setting up an
international police force to restore order, which would
support a government of national unity. A Haitian
government team, led by Foreign Minister Joseph Philippe
Antonio, arrived in Paris on Thursday for talks with French
officials.
U.S. President George W. Bush has also said the
deteriorating situation in Haiti may require an
international security presence, once a political deal is
reached.
Aristide warned on Tuesday that a rebel advance on the
capital could result in a bloodbath and that Haitians could
take to the sea. Tens of thousands of Haitians fled
political turmoil in boats and tried to reach Florida in
the 1990s.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it was holding some 500
Haitian migrants on cutters in the Windward Pass northwest
of Haiti.
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