Calm settles over Haiti’s capital
By JONATHAN M. KATZ, Associated Press Writer1 hour, 20 minutes ago
U.N. peace keepers removed barbed-wire barricades around the presidential palace and some businesses reopened Thursday as an uneasy calm settled over Haiti’s capital after three days of violence and looting.
Some roadblocks set up by protesters also came down overnight in Port-au-Prince, where President Rene Preval issued a desperate plea Wednesday for a halt to demonstrations over rising food prices that led to looting and clashes with police.
Women strolled through downtown with baskets of food on their head Thursday, but tensions remained high in the lawless Martissant slum, where some shouted threats at passing cars and fresh graffiti said “Down with Preval!”
“Preval is asking us to do agriculture, but in Port-au-Prince there is no place to do agriculture,” said Cavet Roland, ridiculing the president’s proposals.
The unrest began last week in the southern city of Les Cayes, where five people were killed, and it spread to cities across Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere. Thousands protested in the capital, home to some 2 million people, and bands of looters sacked warehouses and terrorized drivers and shopkeepers with rocks.
After chasing protesters away with tear gas and rubber bullets earlier this week, U.N. troops pulled back from the presidential palace and the Jordanian soldiers relaxed Thursday with their helmets off. But U.N. assault vehicles remained within striking distance.
Many of the protesters have demanded the resignation of the U.S.-backed president, who has been under fire for months over soaring food prices in a country where most people live on less than US$2 (euro1.26) a day.
Most of Haiti’s 27 senators have called for the resignation of Haitian Prime Minister Jacques Edouard Alexis, Radio Kiskeya reported Thursday. Alexis, the second in command to Preval, survived a no-confidence vote over the government’s handling of the economy in February but the senators said they would call another censure vote on Saturday.
On Wednesday, Preval pledged to try to lower food prices and boost production by helping farmers. He also pleaded for a halt to the violence, telling Haitians that vandalism would only drive up the cost of living.
The U.S. Coast Guard has been watching Haiti for signs of a migrant exodus, but routine patrols have not intercepted any migrant vessels since the unrest began, said Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson, a spokeswoman in Miami. In 1994, the U.S. sent 20,000 troops to the Caribbean nation in part to halt an influx of tens of thousands of boat people.
Food prices have risen 40 percent on average since mid-2007, but Haiti is particularly affected because of its extreme poverty. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on donors Wednesday to provide emergency aid.
