Thousands paraded through a square in Port-au-Prince waving flags in support of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. "Five years, no matter what!" the crowd chanted, insisting Aristide will finish his term in 2006 and not step down." Pierre-Jude Mondélus, a 38-year-old in the crowd, which paraded to the beat of a carnival band, said, "Today we're celebrating our joy and pride in a president who has given us freedom without violence."

"Today, the same forces that in 1991 staged a coup are attempting to overthrow the people's choice," governing party Senator Clones Lans said. Leaflets scattered in some areas Tuesday warned: "If anything happens to Aristide, we'll kill them, we'll burn them... Houses, stores, vehicles, everything will be destroyed. A hungry people doesn't fool around." (AFP)

16 December - The 'strike' call launched by the Group of 184 has been partially respected in the capital, with private banks, gas stations and large shops staying closed. However transport and the offices of the public administration functioned as normal. Nevertheless, some drivers declared their support for the opposition action. The 'strike' is due to finish on Wednesday at five o'clock in the afternoon. (Haiti Press Network)

A statement issued by the Group of 184 declared: "We must continue the struggle to the end in order to uproot the bloody, criminal, outlaw government." (AFP)

16 December - Eighteen popular organisations have issued an call for mobilisation to bring about the departure from power of President Aristide and his regime. The declaration condemns the Lavalas Family government for denying the Haitian people their rights and acting against their interests. In addition to the criticisms widely voiced by other sectors, the popular organisations lambast the Lavalas Family government for applying neo-liberal economic policies and weakening the popular movement.

While calling for Aristide to stand down, the organisations say they remain vigilant about falling into a trap with regard to what comes afterwards. They say politicians must end with the standard practices of "repression, duplicity, betrayal, deception, favouritism and the exclusion of the vast majority". They call on the population to demonstrate, organise and rebuild the popular movement in order to take forward the struggle for an independent Haiti where social justice and the popular will are respected.

Among the 18 organisations signing the declaration are Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen, Solidarite Fanm Ayisyèn, Mouvman Inite Pèp Okay, Rezo Radyo Kominotè Ayisyen, the Union Nationale des Normaliens, and the Chandèl literacy organisation. (press release)

15 December - The United States administration has accused the Haitian government of violently suppressing peaceful political demonstrations by paying "armed thugs" to crack down on crowds protesting President Jean-Betrand Aristide’s rule."The United States deplores the violent suppression of political demonstrations that have occurred in Haiti recently," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said in a statement. "These demonstrations, led mainly by students, were legitimate and peaceful expressions of political views," he said. "The government of Haiti acted in complicity with its hired armed gangs to suppress these demonstrations with violence, resulting in some injuries and deaths," Boucher said. He called on Aristide’s government "to end immediately its efforts to stifle legitimate dissent" and to work with neighboring countries and the Organisation of American States to resolve the political crisis peacefully. (AFP)

15 December - Civic and political groups seeking the ouster of President Aristide urged Haitians on Monday to stop paying taxes and called for a one-day general strike on Tuesday. The Platform of the Civil Society and Political Parties Group, a coalition of private and public sector organisations opposed to Aristide, called for a campaign of civil disobedience, including a tax boycott. "We cannot continue to give money to Aristide to pay thugs to attack us," said businessman and political activist André Apaid, speaking for the group at a news conference. The group called on state employees and police to abandon the government and join forces with the opposition. It called for a one-day strike on Tuesday, followed by massive demonstrations on Wednesday.

Several hundred students gathered downtown for an anti-Aristide march on Monday. Police fired bullets into the air and threw tear gas to disperse them. Police had warned the demonstration would not be permitted because the organisers did not notify police of the time and location 48 hours in advance, as required by law. Opposition leaders issued a statement saying they no longer recognised the authority of the government and the police, and would demonstrate without prior notification. Apaid said police would not be notified of the time or place of Wednesday's demonstration because this would invite the violent disruption of the protest by police and "thugs."

Tuesday is the anniversary of the president's first election in 1990, and Apaid said the opposition will not demonstrate on that day. Wednesday is the anniversary of an attempted coup against the president in 2001. (Reuters)

14 December - Radio reports from the Central Plateau suggest that armed men control the area around the hamlet of Pernal between Lascahobas and Belladere. There are also reports that on Friday they shot dead Amorgue Cléma, the deputy-mayor of Savanette-Baptiste. The killing brings the total number of Lavalas Family members and supporters killed in the area over the last twelve months to 30. (AHP and BBC Monitoring Service)

14 December - Members of popular organisations linked to the governent have erected burning tyre barricades across roads in various parts of the city. The action was taken to demonstrate their support for President Aristide. One of the main entrances to the city from the south, the Barrière Bouteille, was blocked off causing traffic chaos. (Signal FM)

13 December - Police fired warning shots to break up a fourth day of protests led by university students demanding the ouster of President Aristide. Hundreds of people joined about 200 students as they marched from the state university to mid-town Port-au-Prince, where they confronted police. Protesters said the police fired warning shots above their heads, and a group of Aristide militants shot directly at them. They said they found safety by jumping behind a wall. (AP)

Later, the growing crowd of demonstrators, which included singers Lolo Beaubrun from Boukman Eksperyans and Michel Martelly (Sweet Mickey), headed towards Pétionville. Police fired teargas to break up the crowd. (HPN)

12 December - Supporters of President Aristide blocked streets with burning tires and debris Friday as his opponents mounted a third day of marches to demand his resignation. Thick black smoke billowed from dozens of intersections in the capital as groups of Aristide supporters, some armed with shotguns and rifles, crammed into battered pickup trucks and roamed the city.

The president's backers surrounded the National Palace and dared the opposition to show up. "Tell them to come over, we're waiting," said a defiant Harold Nicholson Veillard, 34. "Tell the bourgeoisie if they don't like it, they can leave the country."

There were unconfirmed reports of at least one person shot in Port-au-Prince* (see below), and countless others struck by rocks.

The unrest forced US Rep. Kendrick Meek and other members of Congress to cancel a visit on Friday. Meek and the others had planned to look at the efforts of the OAS and humanitarian programmes in Haiti.

Police did not stop pro-government demonstrators as they set the tires, wood and other debris ablaze in the middle of normally bustling streets. The burning barricades forced drivers to turn their vehicles around and kept pedestrians boxed into confined areas. Streets in some sections of the capital were almost deserted as businesses closed and people stayed home.

Young men and boys, some wielding baseball bats and sticks, manned checkpoints at which motorists were stopped and questioned throughout the day. The government backers appeared to be working with police to keep the anti-Aristide forces from a repeat of the massive demonstration held the previous day. (Miami Herald)

* Kevin Pina in Port-au-Prince writes "It is with great grief and sadness that I inform you of the assasination of my dear friend André Jean-Marie on the evening of December 11, 2003. He was killed in a driveby shooting near the National Palace by unknown assailants who apparently followed his vehicle and waited for him to leave his car. Andre had gone to the palace for a literacy campaign meeting earlier that same evening but had returned to lend his presence to the thousands of supporters camped in front of the palace to defend their constitutional president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide."

12 December - Radio Solidarité has suspended transmission following threats to burn the station down. Government opponents issued the threats because they said Radio Solidarité had not broadcast the news relayed by certain other radio stations concerning allegations that the police had shot into the crowd of demonstrators. Meanwhile, Radio Metropole and Vision 2000 resumed broadcasts on Friday morning while Radio Caraibes and Radio Kiskeya said they planned to follow soon. (various)

12 December - Thousands of Haitians took their politics to the streets in rallies for and against President Aristide, and at least four people were dead after two days of escalating unrest. One person was killed in the capital by gunfire from a vehicle carrying armed men. Clouds of smoke rose over roads blocked by flaming tires. Several people were injured by stones, witnesses said. Three people were killed Thursday when demonstrators clashed with police and armed opponents of Aristide in the coastal town of Gonaïves, a local journalist told AFP. Nineteen people have been killed and 71 injured in clashes in Gonaïves since September 23.

Aristide supporters broke into a national police arms locker at a facility in northeastern Port-au-Prince Friday, loading their vehicles with weapons and heading back to their neighborhoods in the north of the capital, according to several local radio stations. Many businesses closed in Port-au-Prince and bus and car traffic were light.

In Jacmel, in the south, another rally calling for Aristide to step down was underway Friday. (AFP)

12 December - At least four people were shot and wounded as supporters of President Aristide reacted to a huge anti-Aristide march with their own demonstrations on Friday in the capital. Gunshots were heard overnight in various Port-au-Prince neighborhoods as Aristide supporters fired into the air, burned tires and set up barricades at intersections, seeking to take back the streets after Thursday's march by thousands of students. Witnesses said at least four people were shot and wounded, one of them with a bullet to the head, in two neighborhoods of the city during Friday's unrest. It was not clear whether they were government supporters or opponents, or who shot them. State offices, international organizations, private schools, gas stations and other businesses in the city were closed, fearful of violence.

In Washington, the State Department said the US embassy had been closed due to the unrest and it warned Americans against travelling to Haiti. State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said tension was also high in Gonaïves, Cap-Haïtien, Petit-Goave and Jacmel. "Some international organizations have decided to draw down their staffs in Haiti," Fintor said. He said the Haitian government had not been able to keep order in the capital and "in some instances has assisted in violently repressing the demonstrations".

Several hundred supporters of the president gathered in front of the National Palace on Friday morning and marched around the block, beating drums and singing. Some chanted, "Cut off heads, burn down houses," a battle cry of the father of Haiti's independence, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, who led the country to independence from France in 1804. Some demonstrators carried saws or swords and called out threats to students and journalists. Several hundred students and other opponents of the president marched in Port-au-Prince and nearby Petionville, where they were occasionally tear-gassed by riot police. (Reuters)

11 December - Four radio stations have shut down because government supporters called in death threats. After Radio Caraibes was the target of a drive-by shooting and death threats, it and three other stations - Radio Metropole, Vision 2000 and Radio Kiskeya - suspended broadcasts. Station owners said Aristide thugs have vowed to attack. (AP)

11 December - In an interview on with Radio Kiskeya, Senator Dany Toussaint has indicated that he is no longer part of the Lavalas Family Party. He described the popular organisation members who took to the streets to oppose Thursday's massive demonstration as "mercenaries". (Haiti News Network)

11 December - A large anti-government demonstration, aimed at toppling President Aristide, drew thousands of student protesters on Thursday, prompting clashes as police fired tear gas and warning shots and Aristide supporters tossed rocks at the students. One bystander was killed by gunfire, while two students were shot and three others sustained cuts, although it was unclear who fired the shots at the protesters. The Port-au-Prince protest began early in the day with a few hundred students who marched to the presidential palace and were engaged in a brief melee with police and pro-Aristide forces. The students retreated but continued marching around the capital's streets for hours, their numbers swelling into the thousands.

"He must go," shouted Georges Neeresrer, 27, a university art student who joined the demonstration. "I supported Aristide years ago, but he is nothing now but a big liar. We have no respect for him. Tell the Americans to take him back."

With the nation already uneasy as it heads toward its January 1st bicentennial celebration, many Haitians were shocked December 5th when a group of student protesters at Haiti University in downtown Port-au-Prince were attacked by a mob of club- and gun-wielding men who shouted their support for Aristide. Education Minister, Marie-Carmel Paul Austin, resigned in protest, prompting an Aristide spokesman to claim she quit because she was under investigation for misappropriation of money.

More protests are expected on Friday. (Cox News Service)

10 December - Calling for the resignation of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, university students peacefully demonstrated on Wednesday, days after government partisans attacked them in a counter-demonstration that left dozens injured. More than 2,000 students marched in front of the downtown National Palace. Aristide told reporters earlier in the day that he condemned the "unacceptable" violence of previous demonstrations. Police protected the students, and breaking with the usual pattern, Aristide partisans did not attempt to block the protesters. (Miami Herald)

10 December - Juge d'Instruction (investigating magistrate) Bredy Fabien of the St. Marc trial court has issued his ordonnance in the March 1990 Piatre massacre. The ordonnance in Haiti is the final major pre-trial document, and sets forth the charges against those accused.

On March 12 1990, agents of local landlords and Haitian army soldiers attacked the village of Piatre, killing eleven people, razing 375 houses, destroying cultivated fields and killing farm animals. The attack was the culmination of a land conflict between small-scale Piatre farmers and two large landowner families, the Nadals and the D'Mezards. It was planned to thwart the Piatre farmers' attempts to reclaim, through the courts, land that had been expropriated by wealthy landowners. The attack was sparked by the killing of the local Section Chief and his deputy the day before by residents of Piatre, in retaliation for the Section Chief's killing of a prominent Piatre leader. (Bureau des Avocats Internationaux)

10 December - Amnesty International has expressed its concern that human rights abuses against demonstrators are becoming a pattern in Haiti. The organisation has received reports of violence against students of the State University of Haiti while they were protesting against government practices last Friday. According to the information received, students were attacked by pro-government ounter-demonstrators on university grounds, in the presence of police who did not intervene in time to stop the violence. The university's rector, Pierre Marie Paquiot, was reportedly attacked with an iron bar, resulting in two fractured legs, while the vice-rector Wilson Laleau suffered head injuries from a similar weapon. Over 20 others, primarily students, were said to have been wounded, by firearms, batons, rocks or other weapons. The government supporters also vandalised university buildings.

The government has announced the creation of a commission which would investigate the incidents. "The authorities have to act quickly and decisively to bring those responsible to justice, so as to break the cycle of impunity in Haiti," Amnesty International concluded. (Amnesty International)

9 December - US officials have repatriated 361 Haitians after a Coast Guard cutter intercepted their 54-foot sloop in the Bahamas. The US Coast Guard Cutter Escanaba cutter picked up the migrants on Saturday near Great Inagua Island in the Bahamas as Tropical Storm Odette churned to the east. Of the 361 migrants, 348 were adults. (AP)

8 December - Police have fired tear gas and warning shots to break up a school student demonstration in Gonaïves in the latest in a wave of anti-government protests. Hundreds of school students had gathered in front of a high school in west-coast Gonaïves, demanding that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resign. Two pupils were arrested. The show of opposition came just two days after police clashed with demonstrators in another anti-government protest in Gonaïves. Two young children were shot and wounded in that demonstration. The government claims the protests are meant to spoil state-sponsored bicentennial celebrations in Gonaïves, where independence was proclaimed from slave-holding France in January 1804. (AP)

6 December - Prime Minister, Yvon Neptune, has condemned "all violence from wherever it comes". His comments came a day after incidents in Port-au-Prince that left 25 people injured, most of them students. Anti-Aristide university students and members of pro-government popular organisations were involved in violent clashes. (AFP)

4 December - The peasant organisation, "The Peasants' Affairs Committee for Integration and Progress" (KOZEPEP), has called for a political compromise to get the country out of its current impasse. KOZEPEP spokesperson, Kenson Polynice, said that compromise is essential to solve the crisis stemming from the elections of May 21, 2000, and thus relieve the suffering of the disadvantaged masses, in particular, the peasants. Polynice said that the persistence of this crisis is seriously affecting the farming community. He said that the crisis is preventing a satisfactory response to peasant demands, in particular for a continuation of agrarian reform and an increase in national production. He deplored the fact that the situation has lasted more than three years and has slowed down the implementation of any agricultural policy in the country. (AHP)

3 December - University students have held an anti-government demonstration, calling for President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to step aside so his ailing country could heal. About 200 students marched through the capital, waving placards and spray painting walls with anti-Aristide slogans. A small group of Aristide supporters pelted the students with rocks.

Meanwhile, in the coastal town of Petit-Goâve on Wednesday, gunshots rang out on the second anniversary of journalist Brignol Lindor’s death. About 1,000 people marched as Aristide supporters threw rocks. Lindor was hacked to death in 2001. Ten Aristide partisans were charged with murder but only two have been found. (AP)

1 December - Two businessmen, David Apaid and Charles Baker, have been released after spending 17 days in prison. The two members of the Group of 184 were set free some hours after their second appearance in front of judge, Joachim Saint-Clair. The two had been arrested at the start of a Group of 184 demonstration at the Champ de Mars on 14 November, on the charge of possession of illegal firearms. Dozens of sympathisers welcomed them in front of the National Penitenciary. (Haiti Press Network)