ARTICLE - SOLDIERS ON PARADE

SEVERAL HUNDRED PARADE WITH FORMER HAITIAN SOLDIERS
(Defend Haiti) -

CAP-HAITIEN - Former soldiers of the Haitian army paraded the streets of Okap on Friday to the applause of several hundred supporters who were mobilized following news of an imminent intervention of the police, who would seek to expel these men in uniform from the department agricultural office.

According to the observations of the local correspondent of Radio Kiskeya, these rumors and crowd movements were amplified when a helicopter in which was the Minister of the Interior and National Defense, Thierry Mayard-Paul, was flying over the city.

Those who claim to be the former Armed Forces of Haiti, said they had no intention to abandon the administration building where they have settled since Monday.

This show of force came a day after the Minister of Justice and Public Safety, Michel Brunache, ordered the National Police to use force to dislodge the gunmen installed on public sites, and end their occupation deemed illegal in the territory.

Participating in the launch of a workshop on seismic risk in the far north, Minister Mayard-Paul could not speak as announced by the delegate from the north, Yvon Alteon, with leaders, who are demobilized soldiers. He even waited in vain for a group that was to join him at the head of the delegation.

In uniform, and some armed with rifles or Uzi M1, the few dozen occupants of the development organization of the North (ODN) marched through the neighborhood of Vertières, at the entrance to Cap-Haitien, arriving near the famous monument to an independence hero.

Briefly deployed in the area, officers of the National Police, including those of the specialized unit UDMO, quickly regained the police station in the country's second city.

The presence of gunmen in several parts concerned sectors of national life, who suspect the head of state of supporting them implicitly. Martelly seeks the restoration of the military almost twenty years after its dissolution in 1995.