HAITI: Rebels in Haiti set their sights on the rest of the country yesterday after swooping in to take the second-largest city in an escalation of a bloody rebellion against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
The capture prompted the US to send in troops to protect its embassy. With the rebels now in control of Cap Haitien and determined to move on, Washington was sending about 50 US Marines to protect its embassy in the capital of Port-au-Prince.
France, the former colonial power in the poorest country in the Americas, joined several other foreign governments and told its citizens to leave the country, shaken by violence that has killed more than 50 people since the revolt began on February 5th.
Seizing their biggest prize so far, a ski-mask-clad rebel force of about 200 overran the northern city of Cap Haitien, a city of about 500,000, on Sunday, putting anti-Aristide forces in control of much of the north. The city appeared calm yesterday.
Witnesses said heavy gunfire rattled through the streets of Cap Haitien and columns of smoke rose from at least two buildings when rebel forces took control of the airport and chased poorly trained government police from the city.
Joking and relaxed, a rebel leader said his comrades would soon take over the rest of the country. "We will liberate Haiti from the slavery of Aristide," said Louis Jodel Chamblain.
"So far, the only resistance we've encountered has been with machetes," Mr Chamblain said in an interview at the city's airport.
Mr Chamblain, a former leader of a militia that terrorised Haitians in the early 1990s, was surrounded by about 50 rebel fighters dressed in military fatigues and some toting guns.
Asked about reports that the rebels planned to take the capital Port-au-Prince within two weeks, Mr Chamblain said only, "I don't talk strategy."