2004 Haitian coup d'état

Map of Haiti

The 2004 Haiti Rebellion is a war presently being fought in Haiti, primarily over the issue of the presidency of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, that is generally considered to have begun with the seizure of the country's fourth-largest city, Gonaïves, by a group calling itself the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front on February 5, 2004.

The rebels, who have since renamed themselves the National Revolutionary Front for the Liberation of Haiti, are demanding the resignation of President Aristide, but Aristide has emphasized his determination to serve out the remainder of his term (which ends on February 7, 2006), insisting that Haiti should not continue its history of moving from "coup d'état to coup d'état," but should instead move from "elected president to elected president."

The causes of the violence are disputed. According to supporters of Aristide's government, the rebellion is a coup attempt by former soldiers of the now-disbanded army (which ruled Haiti from 1991 to 1994) on behalf of the old elite of Haiti, which seeks to put an end to Aristide's populist policies and democratic rule. According to the rebels and the civilian opposition, however, the rebellion is a natural consequence of what they consider Aristide's poor governance and the alleged rigging of Haiti's 2000 legislative elections.

It is clear that the rebellion is being primarily fought and led by former soldiers of the Haitian army, and this has drawn a great deal of condemnation, since the army was responsible for civilian massacres during the early 1990s. Even prior to the widespread violence that has now engulfed the country, a low-level rebellion was waged by some ex-soldiers in the central part of the country since at least 2003, resulting in several dozen deaths. Furthermore, on February 14, 2004, a number of former soldiers (including the notorious former militia leader Louis-Jodel Chamblain) returned from exile in the Dominican Republic and announced their intention to join the rebels based in Gonaïves.

The rebels attribute much of their rapid success to Aristide's failure to disarm the army when he disbanded it in 1995; however, they insist that the popular support they enjoy is an equally important reason. Haiti's police force of 5,000 has proven too small and poorly armed to be effective in resisting the rebel advance, and in some places, such as Cap-Haïtien, the police seem not have mounted any substantial resistance at all.

Another component of the rebellion are the armed gangs which have frequently been a source of violence in Haiti in recent years. The most prominent of these gangs, the "Cannibal Army," long acted as Aristide's primary support base in the city of Gonaïves before turning against him in recent years. This gang, which has since become one of the main elements of the National Revolutionary Front, claims the weaponry it is presently using to fight the government was given to it by Aristide at a time when it still supported him; allegedly, the main purpose of this was to intimidate the opposition during the 2000 elections. The government, however, says that the rebels possess firepower far greater than that of the Haitian police, and that the weaponry must therefore have a foreign origin.

To a large extent, Haitian politics has been defined by such gangs for the last decade. While it was an anti-Aristide gang that initiated the rebellion in Gonaïves, pro-Aristide gangs have fought back on behalf of the president. Gangs on both sides have been accused of grim atrocities, such as executing supporters of the other side and setting fire to their homes.

According to many supporters of Aristide, the country's civilian opposition is acting as a fifth column in support of the rebels. The opposition denies this, but many of its members have acknowledged their support for the rebel cause, and have stated that they share with the rebels the common goal of Aristide's ouster: according to them, they disagree with the rebels only on the question of employing violent rebellion to that end.

Beginning in Gonaïves with the capture of that city's police station on February 5, the rebellion quickly spread to the nearby port city of Saint-Marc. 150 policemen attempted unsuccessfully to retake Gonaïves on February 8, losing between three and 14 officers in the battle. Saint-Marc was, however, recaptured by police and pro-Aristide militants by February 10, although sporadic fighting has continued in the area. Apparently in cooperation with the rebels in these northern and central cities, the south-western city of Grand-Goave was taken by rebels at around the same time, but it too was recaptured by police shortly thereafter.

In the following days, the rebels pursued a strategy of advancing toward the country's second-largest city, Cap-Haïtien, and the town of Dondon, just south of Cap-Haïtien, changed hands several times in the fighting. Furthermore, some of the rebels reached the Dominican border, blocking the main road between the two countries and enabling the aforementioned exiled former soldiers to cross into Haiti. By February 17, the rebel forces had captured the central town of Hinche, near the Dominican border.

On February 19, rebel leader Buteur Metayer declared himself president of the areas under his control, with former Cap-Haïtien police chief Guy Philippe as commander of the rebel army. On February 22, the rebels captured Cap-Haïtien with surprisingly little bloodshed: the city's police had already made clear their reluctance to fight, and the well-armed and trained rebels had little difficulty sweeping aside the resistance of the city's pro-Aristide militants. On February 24, the rebels followed this success with the capture of the northwestern city of Port-de-Paix and with the capture of Tortue Island, off the northern coast, the next day. These gains have effectively ended government control in northern Haiti.

On February 26, a new band of rebels captured the country's third-largest city, Les Cayes, in the southwest. More rebel successes followed, as they captured the strategic crossroads of Mirebalais, 30 miles from the country's capital, Port-au-Prince. Most foreigners have been evacuated from Haiti in anticipation of an assault on Port-au-Prince.

A foreign-backed peace plan, which would have allowed Aristide to serve out his term but with substantially reduced powers and alongside a prime minister from the civilian opposition, was proposed on February 20. It was quickly accepted by Aristide but rejected by the opposition, which continues to demand the president's resignation. France has blamed Aristide for the violence and suggested he should leave office in favor of a transitional government; however, many governments in the region have been more supportive of Aristide, alarmed at the precedent that would be set by the overthrow of a democratically elected leader by armed rebels.

The United States, which intervened in Haiti in 1994 to restore Aristide to power, has publicly adopted an ambiguous stance on this issue. While condemning the rebellion and claiming that it does not support the violent overthrow of democratically elected leaders, it has also pointedly blamed Aristide for contributing to the violence and has suggested that an end to the crisis might require Aristide's absence from the political scene. For its part, the Haitian government accuses the U.S. of supporting the rebels and planning Aristide's ouster.

Some American politicians have strongly criticized the Bush's administration's stance on Haiti, on the grounds that it is failing to take a moral stand in defense of Haitian democracy. On February 25, for instance, U.S. Congresswoman Corrine Brown called the Bush Administration's non-intervention in Haiti racist.