Gonaïves is the city at the base of Haiti’s northwestern peninsula where Latin America’s first declaration of independence was read on January 1, 1804. The Haitian government is working feverishly to repave roads, repair street-lamps, restucco buildings, and repaint walls there as bicentennial celebrations rapidly approach.

But the Washington-backed Haitian opposition, in particular its “armed wing,” is working with equal fervor to, at the very least, disrupt upcoming festivities and, in their best case scenario, drive President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from office.

Commando units of former Haitian soldiers who have been assassinating government officials and attacking police stations primarily on Haiti’s Central Plateau over the past 26 months may now be concentrating their energies on fomenting trouble in Haiti’s cities, particularly Gonaïves, Haitian authorities believe.

On Oct. 26, a band of about 15 armed men attacked the Gonaïves police headquarters. In the ensuing gun battle, a 17-year-old girl, Josna Pierre, was killed when shot in the head while returning home on a bicycle from church. Two policemen, including Departmental Cheif Camille Marcellus, were also wounded.

In a related operation, heavily armed gunmen burst into the home of Ketelin Télémaque, the executive’s local representative, and stole all the weapons there. The San Manman (Motherless) army, as the Central Plateau anti-government guerillas are known, have frequently attacked targets to recuperate weapons.

“The armed wing of the opposition is sowing terror in Gonaïves,” said Mario Dupuy, Secretary of State of Communications. “We will not tolerate terrorist acts, and we are taking measures to stop them.”

On Oct. 27, reinforced police units swept into the Gonaïves neighborhood of Raboteau in an effort to round-up the gunmen behind Sunday’s attack and another on Oct. 1 in which three government offices were set ablaze (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 21, No. 30, 10/8/2003). With a helicopter hovering overhead and Coast Guard boats positioned offshore, police units surrounded Raboteau and gradually tightened the perimeter. Gun battles erupted and Jocelyne Michel, 30, was killed, and two other women wounded. The house of Amiot “Kiben” Métayer, a Raboteau leader who was found murdered on Sep. 22, was partially burned along with two vehicles in front of it. Twelve men were arrested.

The police continued their counter-offensive on Oct. 28. Gunfire crackled in Raboteau and surrounding areas throughout the day. Five houses were set on fire in the skirmishes. A one-month old baby girl died in one blaze. The depots at nine nearby salt flats were also burned.

The past few days of violence brings the death toll since Métayer’s death to about one dozen, with three dozen wounded.

The current troubles in Gonaïves bear all the hallmarks of a classic Washington-orchestrated destabilization campaign. Analysis of the evidence so far suggests that Métayer’s killing may have been planned weeks in advance to lay the ground for bringing the San Manman’s war into the cities.

Métayer had led a pro-government popular organization fearsomely named the “Cannibal Army.” Violence has gripped Gonaïves since Métayer’s killing, which his brother, Buteur, claims was ordered by Aristide, offering no proof. Mainstream press agencies and opposition-aligned radios have echoed this suspicious charge and tried to depict the violence there as a popular uprising.

But other witnesses in Gonaïves say that the trouble stems not from the town’s population of 200,000, or even that of Raboteau. Out-of-town agitators, they say, whose origins and identities remain shadowy, have converged on the city, bringing with them weapons and money. The infiltrators have been working with people like Jean Tatoune, who was convicted and jailed in 2000 for participating in the 1994 Army-orchestrated Raboteau massacre (see Haïti Progrès, Vol. 12, No. 4, 4/26/1994). Tatoune, who Dupuy says led the Oct. 26 attack, escaped from jail on Aug. 2, 2002 when men from the Cannibal Army bulldozed the Gonaïves prison’s wall to free Métayer, who was being held there pending trial on charges which were later dismissed.

Ironically, Washington, the Organization of American States, the Haitian opposition, and the mainstream media never clamor for Tatoune’s arrest, as they did ceaselessly for Métayer’s.

The notion that the government had Métayer killed seems far-fetched at the very least. Haitian government spokesmen, and even Aristide, have asked what interest the government would have in destabilizing Gonaïves and Haiti by killing Métayer, who was a government ally when he died.

The charge hinges on an early report that he was last seen alive leaving his home with Odonel Paul, the leader of another Gonaïves popular organization MODLIN. Paul was presented by the mainstream press as someone working closely with the Aristide government. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Paul had worked in the National Palace press service of Aristide’s predecessor, René Préval. He had then been hired to work in the Interior Ministry headed by Henri Claude Ménard under Aristide’s first prime minister in 2001, Jean-Marie Chérestal. Paul was briefly jailed for misdeeds he allegedly committed while in that post. When he was released, Chérestal and Ménard had both been replaced, and Paul was out of a job. Bitter, he returned to Gonaïves where he organized anti-government mobilizations. In a press conference, Odonel Paul even called on the United States to intervene in Haiti to remove Aristide from office. In conversations with former comrades, Paul called Aristide a “scoundrel” to be “uprooted.”

Is it logical, therefore, that Odonel Paul, an avowed Aristide foe, would be carrying out the assassination of a Haitian government ally on behalf of that same government?

However, just days before the Métayer’s murder, Odonel Paul paid a “courtesy call” to the Palace, to say hello to some of his former colleagues. One of them noticed that he was better dressed, “sharper looking,” than the popular organization leader used to be. Another former colleague, who worked with Paul during the 1991-1994 coup, opined that he was “not afraid of money.”

Could Odonel Paul have wanted to be seen at the Palace? Was his visit there precisely to draw a link?

Today, Odonel Paul and his family have disappeared. Some rumors say that he has traveled to the U.S..

In any case, the mainstream and opposition-aligned press, along with affiliated human rights groups, have been more than happy to uncritically repeat the flimsy charge that the Haitian government killed Métayer, all on the basis of the Odonel Paul association.