Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Friday, February 20, 2004
Armed government militias patrol Cap-Haitien in Haiti
Groups of militias loyal to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday patrolled the streets of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second important city with 500,000 inhabitants.
Groups of militias loyal to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday patrolled the streets of Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second important city with 500,000 inhabitants.
Reports from Port-au-Prince said improvised barricades blocked streets of the Cap-Haitien city and the militias warned no one would be allowed to pass.
President Aristide said Thursday that the rebels' threat to take the Haitian capital and other large cities is a "bluff."
Haiti disbanded its army years ago and has a 4,000-strong police force to guarantee security.
In the northwestern rebel-controlled city of Gonaives, the rebels renamed their movement the National Resistance Front to Liberate Haiti and made former Police Chief Guy Philippe their commander, a man previously involved in the October 2000 coup against Arisitide in which 10 people were killed.
Philippe returned to Haiti from his exile and is believed to have entered Haiti by crossing the border with the Dominican Republic.
"We have the sole strategy of liberating all the cities and allthe districts. We aim at ousting Aristide," the front's spokesman Winter Etienne said.