Kevin Pina interviews the most-wanted man in Haiti: Amaral Duclona

By the Haiti Information Project (HIP)

HIP - Port au Prince, Haiti — Amaral Duclona is Haiti's most wanted man.

That is, the most wanted by the U.S.-installed de facto government. His name flashes across television screens throughout the capital each night along with those of twelve other men accused as "bandits" in the sprawling seaside slum of Cité Soleil.

Amaral is in fact the leader of the anti-coup and anti-occupation resistance in Cité Soleil. He has taken up the mantle of his fallen friend and comrade, Emmanuel "Dread" Wilmer, who was gunned down by U.N. troops last July.

The U.S.-installed government and Haiti's elite now charge Amaral with killing Canadian police officer Mark Bourque in Cité Soleil last December. He vehemently denies the accusation.

Cité Soleil is home to over 300,000 Haitians who live in abject poverty. Children play among mountains of garbage and open sewage canals. Most are malnourished, as their parents, unable to find work amidst 80% unemployment, try desperately to keep their families alive.

Cité Soleil is also a bastion of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In his first successful bid for the presidency in 1990, Aristide announced his candidacy in this shantytown. Following the violent military coup against Aristide on Sep. 30, 1991, Cité Soleil took the brunt of violence meted out by Gen. Raoul Cédras' military dictatorship. During that three year coup, the Haitian army in league with the CIA-funded paramilitary death squad known as the Front for Advancement and Progress in Haiti (FRAPH) slaughtered thousands and burned down whole neighborhoods in the slum.

After President Aristide was ousted a second time on Feb. 29, 2004, Haitian police and paramilitary units made armed forays into Cité Soleil while occupying U.S. Marines did nothing to intervene. But soon, young men formed community self-defense brigades which began shooting it out with the police and paramilitaries, effectively driving them from the slum.

Even before the deployment of the U.N. Mission to Stabilize Haiti (MINUSTAH), Cité Soleil and other neighborhoods like Bel Air and Solino became launch pads for massive demonstrations demanding Aristide's return. The Haitian police's brutal SWAT teams bloodily repressed these protests, while MINUSTAH forces stood by.

The massive demonstrations belied mainstream press reports that Aristide had lost popular support and embarrassed the Washington-parachuted government of Prime Minister Gérard Latortue and the MINUSTAH. The U.N. force's stated purpose was to restore stability and democracy to Haiti. But Haiti's poor majority increasingly saw them as an army of foreign occupation bent on propping up a client government and crushing their movement.

As gun battles intensified between Lavalas' armed followers and the Haitian police, the MINUSTAH intervened to crush opposition in Bel Air and to contain Cité Soleil. Large cargo containers and concrete barriers were placed on all of Cité Soleil's major entrances, isolating the shantytown from the rest of the capital. U.N. troops searched men, women and children entering and leaving the neighborhood.

At the same time, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) began pacification programs designed to win the hearts and minds of Cité Soleil residents and undermine their resistance.

In Bel Air, the U.N. troops crushed and bought off the armed anti-coup groups while setting up military posts throughout the hillside neighborhood. Meanwhile, the UN and USAID began sponsoring so-called community development projects, concerts and soccer matches.

The only "community development" organization first allowed into Cité Soleil was working hand-in-hand with USAID. Yele Haiti was founded by the famous Haitian hip-hop musician, Wyclef Jean. He asked residents of Cité Soleil to accept the occupation and let go of demands for Aristide's return. His call fell on deaf ears.

Read More With Photos:
http://haitiaction.net/News/HIP/2_1_6/2_1_6.html