Terrorism Haiti

Terror and violence over the past seven weeks appear to have put the military-dominated government in full command of Haiti's political fortunes and driven its opponents offstage. Given the volatile mood of the people, Haitian and foreign observers say, it would be premature to predict that the government, headed by Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy, can hold on to power indefinitely.

Six men wearing camouflage uniforms and carrying assault rifles stormed a police academy and a jail, demanding loyalty to the disbanded Haitian army. Three policemen were killed and four wounded. Before dawn, the gunmen drove up to the suburban Petionville academy and headed for the barracks, spraying them with gunfire, police said. The attackers seized senior officer Eddy Cantave from a dormitory and forced him to lead them to a SWAT team compound, where heavy arms are stored.

It can't march, its uniforms don't match, its band doesn't play in tune, its leaders are at each other's throats and its commander is so splay-footed he appears to walk in three directions at once. But if the Haitian army doesn't seem very military, it can steal, terrorize--and above all it can kill.

The elections were only days away, but Senate candidate Marie-Denise Claude wasn't campaigning. The 39-year-old sociologist ended her public rallies weeks ago--even before one of her opposition party's campaign managers was hacked to death last month amid preelection violence that hangs over today's vote like a curtain of fear.

Vividly recalling the psychological trauma he suffered as a child exposed to the bloodshed of Haiti's last presidential election 30 years ago, a normally taciturn Port-au-Prince businessman described how he has prepared both his children and himself to endure the fear and violence that have grown here as a prelude to Sunday's nationwide voting. "For my children, I have cut off the television and stopped talking about the news every day. I keep them home as much as possible.

From behind the barred steel gate of what was to have been the vote-counting center of Haiti's bloodily aborted presidential election, an aged janitor, now the sole occupant of the electoral headquarters, nervously cried " Ferme , ferme " (closed) Monday.

An eleventh-hour attempt by Haiti's army-led provisional government to fashion quick new elections more to its liking faltered Friday as three independent groups responsible for organizing the electoral process refused to go along with what one political leader called "an army sham." Haiti's Roman Catholic bishops, its six leading human rights organizations and its Journalists' Assn. rejected outright a request by the National Government Council, led by Lt. Gen.

The Reagan Administration announced Sunday night that it is freezing all U.S. military aid and some economic aid to Haiti and that it is withdrawing all American military personnel from the Caribbean nation because of the military-led regime's cancellation of national elections. "All non-humanitarian economic aid programs to Haiti are being suspended and only humanitarian assistance will continue," a State Department spokesman said.

A fire roared through a slum that is a stronghold of support for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, destroying about 200 dwellings Monday. A private radio station reported 10 people dead. Stunned residents of the Cite Soleil slum said the blaze was set by members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, which supports the military that ousted Aristide in a 1991 coup. But the group denied responsibility.

The tense impasse between Haiti's army-led government and nervous civilian political leaders over how to resume the country's bloody and faltering march to democracy continued Tuesday as frightened residents of this capital city tried to pick up the threads of normal life.

Due to an inexplicable and unwise settlement, Emmanuel Constant, Haiti's most infamous thug, has been freed from a U.S. prison. Constant was the founder and director of FRAPH, the largest paramilitary group in Haiti. He is accused in the Caribbean nation of having supervised the murder, torture and rape of thousands there. Constant was arrested in the United States after the State Department declared him a threat to U.S. interests.

It was in 1992, before Christmas, that I escaped. I had to because I was in charge of a youth committee organized under the Aristide government. What we did was go out and clean the streets. When Aristide was exiled, the new government came looking for anybody or any group that was supporting him. The group I was in charge of stayed together even after Aristide left, so they came after us. I escaped, but a lot of the members of that youth group were arrested.

It has become part of the early morning ritual, like going to get water or opening a stall for business. The people who exist in this fetid slum head out at daybreak to count the bodies. For weeks and months, mutilated bodies have turned up regularly, almost daily, at 15 Soleil, the address of the half-square-mile garbage dump located inside the slum, sometimes two and three at a time, all with multiple bullet wounds.

A fire roared through a slum that is a stronghold of support for exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, destroying about 200 dwellings Monday. A private radio station reported 10 people dead. Stunned residents of the Cite Soleil slum said the blaze was set by members of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, which supports the military that ousted Aristide in a 1991 coup. But the group denied responsibility.

It can't march, its uniforms don't match, its band doesn't play in tune, its leaders are at each other's throats and its commander is so splay-footed he appears to walk in three directions at once. But if the Haitian army doesn't seem very military, it can steal, terrorize--and above all it can kill.

In the markets of Little Haiti last week, goat leg parts were selling for 99 cents a pound, hot peppers shipped in from Port-au-Prince were 14 for a dollar, and intrigue as thick as the springtime humidity was free. In an exile community of about 60,000, where the rhythm of life still takes its cues from the turmoil that so often rocks the impoverished island homeland, this should be a time of tranquility.

The elections were only days away, but Senate candidate Marie-Denise Claude wasn't campaigning. The 39-year-old sociologist ended her public rallies weeks ago--even before one of her opposition party's campaign managers was hacked to death last month amid preelection violence that hangs over today's vote like a curtain of fear.

This nation's painful attempt to crawl from despotism to democracy has again been retarded by an inept and corrupt military government whose undisciplined troops have terrorized the population and stolen such vast sums that the economy is verging on collapse, according to civic and political leaders. The leaders say they fear another reign of Duvalier-style tyranny.

This nation's painful attempt to crawl from despotism to democracy has again been retarded by an inept and corrupt military government whose undisciplined troops have terrorized the population and stolen such vast sums that the economy is verging on collapse, according to civic and political leaders. The leaders say they fear another reign of Duvalier-style tyranny.

Men armed with guns and machetes burst into the church of a militant Roman Catholic priest Sunday and killed at least three parishioners, wounded 60 and burned down the building, witnesses and news reports said. The witnesses said that army troops and trucks stood outside the church but did not intervene until noon, three hours after the assault began. After the attack, gangs stoned the offices of two groups opposed to the military regime of Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy.