Hispaniola adrift

摘要

Gonaieves, a port city of 200,000 people, has long held political significance for Haitians. It was there that rebel slaves declared the independence of the world's first black republic on January 1st 1804. In 1985, the city's students began the popular uprising that led to the fall of the Duvalier family dictatorship. Now Gonaieves may again be poised to make a kind of history. On February 5th, armed rebels, including some notorious miscreants, seized the city, triggering a wider uprising against the deeply unpopular president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. The rebels staged a surprise assault on the main police station, forcing the heavily-armed officers to flee and torching the building. When 150 police reinforcements returned in trucks two days later, they were ambushed and forced to flee a second time. As The Economist went to press, the city was still in rebel hands.