Tag: former President Aristide

Monday, Nov. 13, was a day of extra-judicial killings of men and women estimated by community residents to total 14, plus a number of disappeared. Many are reported wounded by police gunfire and beatings with hammers. In addition, news reports mention 31 arbitrary arrests, and many children and adults were injured by the very potent tear gas used by the police. In the northern city of Cap-Haitien, marching students shouting, “Down with the army, long live education, long live schools!” were brutally attacked by the police using tear gas and batons.

Hooded gangs attacked a large demonstration against election fraud today in the Haitian capital. Haitians, determined to thwart what they see as an ongoing “electoral coup d’état,” have been in the streets almost daily in their tens of thousands since the Oct. 25 first round presidential elections. There were huge demonstrations, punctuated by police firing into the crowd, wounding several, on Nov. 18. On Nov. 1, a big election protest in the Bel Air popular district, led by a Rara band, was attacked and two marchers shot dead; later that day a third protester was ambushed and killed on the way home.

The people of Haiti held a two-day general strike on Monday and Tuesday, Feb. 9 and 10, as part of ongoing popular mobilizations throughout the country. They also successfully struck the week before on Feb. 2. The Martelly government responded with brutal repression in various communities such as in Montrouis, where massive use of tear gas killed two children and police gunfire wounded a number of community residents.