UNREST CONTINUES IN GONAIVES

C O N F I D E N T I A L PORT AU PRINCE 000966 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR WHA/EX AND WHA/CAR S/CRS SOUTHCOM ALSO FOR POLAD STATE PASS AID FOR LAC/CAR INR/IAA (BEN-YEHUDA) WHA/EX PLEASE PASS USOAS E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/29/2012 TAGS: PGOV ASEC KCRM PHUM PINR HA SUBJECT: UNREST CONTINUES IN GONAIVES Classified By: Ambassador Janet A. Sanderson for reasons 1.4 (b) and (c ). ¶1. (C) Summary. Violent demonstrations against the government and MINUSTAH on May 22 and 24 are the most recent result of increased gang activity and tensions in the northern port city of Gonaives. The murder of a local journalist and civic activist Alix Joseph sparked the most recent disturbances. Local gang members infiltrated demonstrations organized by journalists' organizations and threw stones at MINUSTAH and the Haitian police on May 22 and repeated their actions on May 24 during Joseph's funeral, according to MINUSTAH sources. Political observers believe that Senator Youri Latortue is either instigating or encouraging the disturbances. Ongoing violence in Gonaives discredits both the government and MINUSTAH, raising Latortue's profile as a powerful alternative to the current order. End Summary. ¶2. (C) Armed men on May 16 assassinated Alix Joseph, the director of programming of the private Radio-Tele Provinciale in Gonaives, shooting him nine times while he sat in his car. The Haitian National Police (HNP) have yet to determine a motive for the homicide, though many of his friends and colleagues claim he had run afoul of the local gangs because of work as a journalist and as an anti-gang community activist. Joseph's death followed the April 13 murder of former journalist and regional spokesman for Lavalas Johnson Edouard, which also remains unsolved. ¶3. (C) Several local journalists' organizations organized demonstrations in Gonaives on May 22 to protest Joseph's murder, the rising level of criminal activity in Gonaives, and lack of law-enforcement response. MINUSTAH officials who witnessed the demonstration reported that roughly two hundred men, most of them young and apparently poor and many of them presumed gang members, joined the protest, throwing rocks at UNPol and Haitian Police (HNP) officers, and marched to the town prison in an attempt to release the inmates before UNPol units disbursed the crowd with tear gas. Rock-throwing demonstrators on May 24 also disrupted Joseph's funeral in Gonaives, again requiring UNPol and HNP intervention with tear gas. ¶4. (C) Comment. The disturbances in Gonaives appear to be the latest episode in a clash between government authority in Port-au-Prince, and by extension MINUSTAH, and criminal forces in Gonaives who control the port, the local commerce, and the local law enforcement. While Youri Latortue may have become something of a combination boogeyman and pat answer for government officials seeking to explain their failure to improve conditions in Gonaives, a broad spectrum of contacts with knowledge of the situation almost unanimously believe that Latortue orchestrates an anti-government/anti-MINUSTAH campaign and manipulates the local gangs to his own political ends. Specifically, they charge that Latortue encourages lawlessness in Gonaives to discredit the government and to bolster his case for the re-establishment of Haiti's army, while strengthening his own power base in the region. ¶5. (c) Comment continued. MINUSTAH officials relate that the Argentinian contingent stationed in Gonaives once kept a tight lid on street disturbances and blatant criminal activity, particularly in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Jean in 2004. After a series of troop rotations, however, they have become lax and disengaged from the situation in the city. Several MINUSTAH officials have expressed that MINUSTAH and the HNP now need to do for Gonaives what they did in Cite Soleil -- target gang leaders and impose order in the slums. The MINUSTAH and the HNP struck the first blow on May 27, arresting Gonaives gang-leader (and presumed Latortue associate) Willifort Ferdinand, alias "Ti Will," as he gave an interview on a local radio station. SANDERSON