Haitian Troops Launch Major Assault on Rebels

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Intense machine-gun and cannon fire erupted Friday night as troops and armored cars of the Presidential Guard began a major assault on the barracks of rebel soldiers demanding the ouster of Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, the Haitian leader.

Residents of the area around the Dessalines Barracks, only 200 yards from the presidential palace, said that palace forces moved into position at about 7:30 p.m. local time. Within minutes, more than a dozen cannon shots and steady machine-gun fire were heard from the direction of the barracks.

Details were sketchy into the evening, but the move appeared to be a show of strength designed to break a three-day-old standoff between Avril and the rebels. The assault on the barracks was the latest turmoil to occur here after two army units mutinied Wednesday in the wake of an aborted coup attempt Sunday.

Earlier Friday, the rebels seized control of Radio Soleil, a Roman Catholic station, and accused Avril on the air of “war crimes” against the Haitian people.

The Dessalines soldiers and other rebels from the elite army battalion known as the Leopards “ask one thing: that Gen. Avril leave,” according to a broadcast by an unidentified soldier among those who seized the station. They are demanding that Avril turn over power to the president of the country’s highest court and that elections be held within 120 days.

“We are still firm on our position,” the soldier said in the broadcast, denying a statement by the president that the rebels had decided to end the dispute.

The rebels accuse the government of favoring the Presidential Guard in pay and living conditions and of arbitrarily dismissing senior officers in a U.S.-backed crackdown on drugs and corruption.

Attempts to negotiate with the mutineers remained stalled, as they have been since Wednesday, one of Avril’s aides, Col. Marc Charles, said Friday.

Envoy Met With Avril

U.S. Ambassador Brunson McKinley met with Avril at the presidential palace and offered support for the shaky six-month-old government.

Firing their guns and warning their countrymen to go home, rebels in jeeps and pickup trucks had driven through the streets of Port-au-Prince earlier in the day. Their supporters built barricades of rubber tires along Delmas Avenue, a major street in the capital, and then set them ablaze.

Radio Soleil reported that at least two members of the Leopards were killed Friday afternoon and many others were injured during fighting between the rebels and the presidential guard in a Port-au-Prince suburb. Up to 12 soldiers are believed to have been killed this week in clashes.

Haiti’s other independent radio stations, the main source of information for the population, were off the air Friday after they defied a government order to broadcast only news approved by the Information Ministry. Officials accused members of the Presidential Guard of dismantling the broadcasting systems of Haiti Inter, Metropole, Antilles International and Radio Liberte.

Meanwhile, shops, offices and schools in the normally bustling capital remained closed as the state of emergency, declared Wednesday by Avril, remained in force.