Last week, Ives reviewed the most recent confrontations in Gonaïves and explained how the primary suspect in the killing of that city’s most prominent popular organization leader, Amiot “Cubain” Métayer, appears to be a government foe, not agent, as the mainstream media has reported.

In addition to trying to blame the Haitian government for Métayer’s murder, the mainstream and opposition-aligned press have sought to portray the provocations of a handful of armed men in the Gonaïves as a popular insurrection.

In fact, most residents of Gonaïves are weary of the violence that has gripped their town since Métayer’s killing. “I would like to hear the voice of the 200,000 inhabitants of Gonaïves, who have been taken hostage every morning by 15 armed bandits,” said Jocelerme Privert, Haiti’s Interior Minister, who visited the city on Oct. 22 with a delegation which included Agricultural Minister Sébastien Hilaire, Education Minister Marie-Carmelle Paul Austin and Public Works Minister Harry Clinton.

But one is unlikely to hear the voice of those residents on Haiti’s airwaves, which are dominated by the bourgeoisie’s conservative anti-government stations. “What we are seeing is not a popular uprising but a media uprising,” Mario Dupuy, Haiti’s Secretary of State of Communications recently quipped.

Terrorist violence, like torching government offices, is presented by this media as “protest” while the government’s sporadic efforts to restore order or repulse attacks is “repression.”

“Each time the situation normalizes a little, there is a terrorist action,” Privert noted during an Oct. 27 press conference. “These actions are purely and simply to create destabilization.”

Emboldened by their media support, the destabilizers based in the Gonaïves neighborhood of Raboteau have openly declared war on the Haitian government. Winter Etienne is a spokesman for the Raboteau-based insurgents, many of whom are from out-of-town and who now call themselves the Resistance Front for Aristide’s Departure. “We are giving [President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide until Nov. 4 to leave power,” Etienne declared last week. “After that, we will begin uprooting him.”

Haiti’s slum and countryside-based popular organizations (OP), the majority of which critically support the government, have become fed up with such brazen subversion and the “armed opposition”’s ceaseless violent provocations as the country tries to prepare for its bicentennial commemorations. They are now mobilizing to thwart the opposition’s destabilization efforts. “We have no problem with them demonstrating peacefully,” said Nahoum Marcellus, an OP-linked Lavalas Family (FL) deputy from Grande Rivière du Nord, “but we are going to counteract any forms of activity aimed at overthrowing President Aristide.”

Meanwhile an FL deputy from Cap Haïtien, James Desrosin, appealed to the opposition to suspend their destabilization campaign during the bicentennial celebrations which begin on Nov. 18, the anniversary of the Haitian revolution’s final Battle of Vertières, and extend through Jan. 1, when Haiti’s independence was declared in Gonaïves in 1804. “We want to exhort the opposition to observe a political truce so we can all, as Haitians, celebrate Vertières and the bicentennial, because it belongs to all of us,” Desrosin said.

Most likely, his appeal will go unheeded. In an Oct. 27 debate on Radio Métropole, FL senator Gérald Gilles defended the popular organizations. “It is the perfect right of Lavalas OPs to counter-demonstrate, a Constitutional right,” he said. “If you assemble 10 people, while facing you I can assemble 10,000, that’s my right.”

Micha Gaillard, a spokesman for the Washington-supported Democratic Convergence opposition front, responded that “in a democracy, demonstrations are done separately; one day it’s one sector, another day it’s another sector.” Gaillard did not specify in which “democracy” he had observed this practice.

Gaillard, whose Convergence allies include Duvalierists and supporters of the 1991 coup d’état, concluded by calling Gilles “a little fascist.”

In a demonstration of their new impatience, popular organizations in Cap Haïtien threw up barricades on the roads leading into that northern city on the weekend of Oct. 25-26, when opposition leaders held a conclave and planned a march. Over local Radio Maxima, the opposition leaders had issued various calls to violence, which has flared during opposition actions several times there in recent months. Last month, the police intercepted a car belonging to Maxima’s owner and local opposition leader Jean-Robert Lalanne. It was filled with assault weapons. Lalanne refused to respond to a warrant to appear in court for the matter, although he sent his lawyer.

Although the police kept clearing away the barricades, the opposition called the action a government plan toblock their protest. “We want to stop the flow of guns into Cap,” one barricade protestor said. “We are tired of the violence and instability.”

“They have to give the country a chance,” said Gracius Laguerre, a local community official in Cap, on Radio Métropole. “Children have to go to school, President Aristide has to have a chance to serve out his five year term. If after five years the opposition wants to take power, let them do so through elections.”

But increasingly, Convergence leaders are calling outright for Aristide’s overthrow, just like their counterparts in the “armed opposition.”

With ceremonies commemorating Vertières approaching, the government this week issued a ban on “political demonstrations” in Cap Haïtien – both pro and anti-government – through Nov. 19. The opposition has said that it will not respect the ban.

The police have also announced that they are stepping up their disarmament campaign in Cap Haïtien and Gonaïves. “It is the disarmament of everybody, including those in Raboteau,” said Minister Privert during his Gonaïves visit. “The day before yesterday, we arrested two people, and one of them was already implicated in burning down the Gonaïves appeals court. Both were already implicated in the criminal events in Pernal.” Pernal is a town on Haiti’s Central Plateau, which anti-government guerillas have used as a base of operations.

On Nov. 3, President Aristide urged government authorities to redouble their efforts to see that local and parliamentary elections are held within the next two months. The terms of many elected officials expire Jan. 14. The Convergence still refuses to take part in the polling, the realization of which will surely provide a new window for “armed opposition” roguery.

Meanwhile, officials of Washington and the regional grouping it dominates, the Organization of American States, have increased their declarations decrying the “deterioration of the political climate,” never pointing their finger at the “armed opposition”’s terrorist actions but only at the Haitian government’s and people’s response. The opposition, both armed and not, are duly encouraged.

It is clear that the coming weeks are likely to be as turbulent and eventful as those leading up to Haitian independence two centuries ago.