Lawlessness Underscores Haiti Challenge [View All]

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STEVENSON JACOBS

Associated Press


LES CAYES, Haiti - More than a month after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted and a new government installed, Haitians in this dusty port town of 50,000 are still terrified to venture out on the streets.

"The person in charge is the person with the biggest gun," said a young doctor at Les Cayes' Immaculate Conception Hospital, which has treated dozens of people wounded in clashes between pro- and anti-Aristide forces. He refused to give his name for safety reasons.

"The police are too frightened to go out, so we have to do their jobs for them," said Silias, wearing an old camouflage ball cap, a soccer jersey and a gold watch. "We're fighting for our country."

Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29. Three days before his ouster, vandals looted the police station, stealing guns, freeing more than 100 prisoners and forcing most officers to flee, Avril said. Several businesses were ransacked in Les Cayes, some 110 miles west of Port-au-Prince, the capital.

It's like living in a prison for many people," said Darline Domercant, an aid worker for Terra Les Hommes, a Lauzanne, Switzerland-based nongovernment group cares for malnourished children. "Nobody knows what will happen tomorrow."

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