Saturday, January 16, 2010
(One day from "A Chronology of Haitian Protest and Resistance since the Earthquake")
A resource produced by Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade

 
There were at least two protests outside Port-au-Prince on this day:

(1) In Carrefour

(2) In Leogane
 

(1) In Carrefour

Haitians protest with barricades of bodies and burning tires

CARREFOUR, Haiti - Barricades of burning tires, rubble and at least four bodies blocked the main road out of the Haitian capital to nearby Carrefour Saturday as residents held a protest demanding the removal of piles of rotting corpses.

"They already took some bodies away, but there are more, many more," said bystander Charles Weber, a 53-year-old voodoo priest, in the crowd of at least three dozen protesters surrounding the smoldering roadblock.

As Weber spoke a police car from the overwhelmed Haitian national force was forced to make a rapid u-turn by the residents.

 

South Haitians protest lack of aid

Al Jazeera,
January 16, 2010

Watch Video   (2:48)

In the city of Carrefour, near the epicentre of the quake, no rescue teams are on site and angry residents have blocked the roads to protest against the absence of aid.

Al Jazeera's Teresa Bo reports from southern Haiti.

 

(2) In Leogane

Outside Haiti capital,
much despair and little aid

By JONATHAN M. KATZ Associated Press Writer

Source
 

LEOGANE, Haiti—As aid masses in Haiti's devastated capital, time is running out in rural areas where the damage is no less severe. In Leogane, frustrated men gathered Saturday with machetes and clubs, ready to fight for a town they said the world has forgotten.

All along the cracked highway heading west from Port-au-Prince along the bay, people begged for help. "SOS," declared a sign near Leogane. "We don't understand why everything is going to Port-au-Prince, because Leogane was broken too."

That is putting it lightly.


Leogane's city center is a rubble pile spiderwebbed with fallen power lines, coastal Haiti re-landscaped as a post-apocalyptic film set. Two mass graves line the road to the capital, a few yellowed bodies thrown in to start a third. ...

Blocks away a group of men gathered to defend a health clinic-turned-shelter against all comers: The local government, which wants to dig another mass grave there, criminals loosed from the capital's broken penitentiary, and looters as hungry as they are.
 

They said they do not want violence, but carried machetes, typical of this sugar-growing town, and clutched wooden pins and poles.


"There is no one in the police station. We haven't seen aid," said 28-year-old Philip Pierre, who manages a
yogurt plant. "We are ready to die fighting if they don't listen to us."

Photo: Men, holding wood and metal objects, protest at the entrance of the town of Leogane, Saturday, Jan. 16, 2010. They are protesting that Leogane has not received any aid in the aftermath of the powerful earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday. (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

 

Saturday, January 16, 2010
(One day from "A Chronology of Haitian Protest and Resistance since the Earthquake")
A resource produced by Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade