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Gangs of pro-Aristide thugs were supporting the police against the rebels. In Cap-Haïtien, the second city, these militias were reported to have driven off an attempt by rebels to seize a suburb. They shot at least two opposition leaders and set fire to a dozen houses.
Despite such dubious victories, Mr Aristide still seems to face the slow but steady collapse of his rule. If it remains in rebel hands, Gonaïves would be a big loss. It is strategically located on the main road between Port-au-Prince and Cap-Haïtien. “We shall work to form a Republic of the Great North,” said Winter Etienne, the city's self-appointed new mayor, recalling the independence struggle when Haiti was divided between rival kingdoms. That would cut the capital off from the Artibonite Valley, Haiti's most fertile rice-producing region. The World Food Programme, which has its main distribution point in Gonaïves, has given warning that the violence is disrupting its efforts to get food to the poorest rural areas.
Officials recognise that they underestimated the rebels. They now plan to lay siege to Gonaïves. But Haiti, with a population of 7.5m, has no more than 5,000 police, most of them poorly equipped. The army was disbanded in 1994, when American troops invaded to restore Mr Aristide to power, reversing a 1991 military coup. The police alone cannot re-establish order, says Yvon Neptune, the prime minister.
Mr Aristide also seems to have underestimated the groundswell of anti-government feeling. This stems from a dispute over alleged fraud in legislative elections in 2000, which led to the opposition boycotting the presidential poll. Discontent is amplified by corruption and economic stagnation. Some 80% of Haitians live in poverty, and few have proper jobs.
Many of those who now oppose the president are former members of the grassroots Organisations Populaires (OP), who first swept the former slum priest and his Lavalas (Cleansing) movement to power in 1990. Many unions and peasant groups that belonged to the OP have turned against Mr Aristide, and are calling for his resignation.
The danger now is that violent confrontation turns to civil war. In Port-au-Prince rival gangs have staged dozens of killings in recent months. In the Cité Soleil slum, another five bodies showed up at the weekend, reportedly former Aristide loyalists who had changed sides. Some of the killers, too, are no longer loyal. Some of the leaders of the “resistance” are former members of the so-called Cannibal Army of enforcers who were armed by the government. They turned against it after the murder last September of their leader, Amiot Metayer, an OP activist. “We consider Aristide to be like a wolf who devours his children,” said Butheur Metayer, the dead man's brother, who has appointed himself police chief in Gonaïves.
The opposition Democratic Platform, made up of political parties, students, civic and business groups, has condemned the violence. But has it made a tacit alliance with the gunmen to remove Mr Aristide? Caribbean leaders who last month began an effort to mediate were due to hold talks with both sides to try to find a way to stop the violence. They will need to act fast.
