Moving quickly to halt mob justice, Haiti's new government is telling residents to stop vengeful attacks or face arrest.
Hours before President Jean-Bertrand Aristide made a new appeal for national reconciliation on Monday, an enraged mob in this coastal town killed two men and burned down the house of the new military chief's mother.The U.S. Embassy expressed regret about violence since Aristide's return Saturday, but embassy spokesman Stan Schrager also alluded to the difficulty of controlling Haiti's liberated masses.
"What's happening now is returning power to the people, and that is not an easy experiment in any country," he said in Port-au-Prince, the capital, on
Monday. A false rumor Sunday night that Maj. Gen. Jean-Claude Duperval had tried to kill Aristide set off the mob in this coastal town 100 miles north of the capital. Fifteen buildings were set afire.
Duperval was promoted last week to replace exiled coup leader Raoul Cedras. His mother's home apparently was a convenient symbol of the hated military that terrorized Aristide supporters for three years after overthrowing him in
1991. "She hasn't even lived here for 10 years," Durand Charles said Monday of his aunt, Jean Charles.
Frenzied Haitians also hacked to death a voodoo priest whom they accused of army sympathies and killed the father of a Haitian soldier, U.S. Staff Sgt. David Bailey said.
U.S. troops and Haitian soldiers arrested 109 people to put down the
violence. Later, in a brief speech at the National Palace behind his bulletproof shield, Aristide urged "creating a state of law like all modern
societies." Information Minister Herve Denis said anyone caught looting or targeting the homes of Aristide's political opponents would be arrested. The lower house of Parliament issued a statement protesting the violence.
But many Haitian soldiers and police are lying low since the military coup leaders were removed, placing a greater burden on U.S. military police and international police monitors thrust into the middle of a deep-rooted
conflict. Duperval has ordered all soldiers to return to their posts
Tuesday. Schrager said the vigilante violence was comparatively minor.
"Although there's no such thing as, in my opinion, acceptable limits of violence, there has been since Sept. 19 a lower rate of violence than before," said Schrager.