Convicts Rule Haiti Town, Executions Plague Another

[seemslikeadream]

By Michael Christie

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - The northeast Haitian town of Fort Liberte lives up to its name for 150 murderers, rapists and thieves freed from the local jail. They run the place.

Three weeks after a multinational force landed in Haiti to restore order after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was driven into exile by an armed revolt and U.S. pressure, lawlessness remains the rule in parts of the impoverished Caribbean nation.

Most of Fort Liberte, a small town on the pockmarked road to the Dominican Republic border from the northern port of Cap-Haitien, is in the hands of escaped convicts, the United Nations said on Tuesday. Stores are shuttered and the streets are empty.

"It's been three weeks since the Multinational Interim Force arrived in Haiti, but the rule of law has yet to be re-established in the north," Joanne Mariner, deputy director of the group's Americas Division, said in a report on Monday. (Additional reporting by Ibon Villelabeitia in Port-au-Prince)
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