VZCZCXRO0349
PP RUEHQU
DE RUEHPU #0966 1501742
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 301742Z MAY 07
FM AMEMBASSY PORT AU PRINCE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 6190
INFO RUEHZH/HAITI COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHBR/AMEMBASSY BRASILIA PRIORITY 1544
RUEHSA/AMEMBASSY PRETORIA PRIORITY 1363
RUEHQU/AMCONSUL QUEBEC PRIORITY 0810
RUMIAAA/HQ USSOUTHCOM J2 MIAMI FL PRIORITY
RUCNDT/USMISSION USUN NEW YORK PRIORITY 1221

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