The images are sickening.

Opposition demonstrators savagely kick and pummel a government partisan with fists, rocks, steel bars and broken bottles during a march through Port-au-Prince on Jan. 7. The victim desperately clings to the edge of a bridge as the assailants beat him in the head. Finally he falls 15 feet into a sewage stream at the bottom of a garbage-strewn ravine. The whole scene was captured and broadcast by Haitian National Television (TNH).

The viciousness of the attack outraged viewing audiences. The young man reportedly died from his injuries.

Despite shrill opposition cries that Haiti is a dictatorship, Haitian police vigorously protected the same march from forays by pro-government crowds who feared the opposition demonstration would storm the National Palace. Police shot dead two government partisans. One other person was killed and 15 wounded, four of them policemen. Ten cars had their windshields smashed.

Earlier that day in Gonaïves, opposition thugs burned down the home of Alina Sixto, a leader of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s Lavalas Family (FL) party chapter in metropolitan New York. Neighbors rescued her blind mother, who was in the house at the time.

Sixto was instrumental in organizing the Jan. 1 bicentennial celebrations in Gonaïves.

The day before, opposition thugs had burned down the Gonaïves home of Charles Josué, another FL militant,.

Butteur Métayer, the mercurial renegade brother of mysteriously slain Gonaïves leader and Aristide ally Amiot “Cubain” Métayer, gave Aristide a deadline of Jan. 15 to leave Haiti. If the president stays on, Butteur said, his opposition organization will begin killing FL partisans.

The Haitian bourgeoisie’s “Group of 184,” headed by North American sweatshop magnate André Apaid Jr., called for general strikes on Jan. 8 and 9. As during past opposition strikes, the bourgeoisie’s big stores, factories and gas stations in the capital closed, but the rest of the city went about its business as usual. Public transportation and informal-sector commerce were practically normal. The “nationwide strike” had absolutely no effect on activities in Haiti’s provinces.

“It’s not really a strike,” commented Ben Dupuy, secretary general of the National Popular Party (PPN) on TNH. “It’s more like a lock-out.”

Exasperated, the bourgeoisie extended the strike for an additional two days. This mainly caused gas shortages and price hikes, which created frustration for motorists and resentment among the masses.

On Jan. 11, the opposition held one of its largest marches to date. Some 20,000 demonstrators marched from Pétionville to Port-au-Prince. The police provided robust security and there was only one minor incident. Opposition demonstrators beat up a man wearing a T-shirt bearing Aristide’s picture.

But in the southern town of Mirogoâne the same day, opposition members killed one FL militant and seriously wounded another during a demonstration calling on the opposition to respect President Aristide’s five year term and to agree to elections.

The night before, unidentified gunmen shot and killed Edner Jeanty, the newly appointed police chief for the North department, as he was returning home in the Vertières district of Cap Haïtien.

On Jan. 13, the opposition’s Struggling People’s Organization (OPL) called for a demonstration on Jan. 16 in front of the National Palace, which pro-government masses have encircled in recent months during opposition marches to protect from any assaults.

Press Lies Noted

Radio Métropole is the most powerful and influential radio of the Haitian bourgeoisie. Although most Haitians speak Creole, it broadcasts almost exclusively in French and many foreign journalists rely on it for their dispatches.

On January 1, 2004, Métropole broadcast the following report from Gonaïves, the city where Haiti’s independence had been declared 200 years earlier and to which President Jean-Bertrand Aristide traveled to make a speech:

In Studio Anchor: So who accompanied [Aristide] during his speech?
Correspondent Jean Alfred: During his speech it was only the delegate to the Artibonite Dr. Billy Racine who was there along with members of the government.

In reality, the stage in Gonaïves was packed with local dignitaries, priests, parliamentarians, representatives from Haiti’s diaspora, artists and other VIPs.

In Studio Anchor: Was the South African president there?
Jean Alfred: Certainly he was there and we noticed that the South African president’s knees were shaking at the moment when a lot of gunfire was fired at the stand where the Head of State was giving his speech.

First, there was no gunfire around or near the podium during Aristide’s speech. Some shots were heard after the president had left. Secondly, South African President Thabo Mbeki did not travel to Gonaïves.

Jean Alfred : Today truly there is a big, big tension, and guns are firing in the entire city and at this moment in the Dekawo section gunfire continues. It was there that they took hostage the presidential cortege, which has headed towards Port-au-Prince.

At no point was the presidential cortege “taken hostage” or attacked. From behind houses in the Dekawo neighborhood, opposition hooligans did stone and fire at the departing south-bound cars and buses of celebrants.

Other opposition-aligned Haitian media and the international press echoed Radio Métropole’s version of events, including Mbeki’s imaginary attendance of the Gonaïves ceremony.

Perhaps it is not ironic that Radio Métropole is financially supported by the government of France, Haiti’s former colonial ruler. On the “Politics” page of Métropole’s website (www.metropolehaiti.com) is an advertisement thanking the French embassy for its “assistance.”

Radio Métropole called Haiti’s massively attended, smoothly conducted and overwhelmingly peaceful bicentennial ceremonies a “fiasco.”