www.haitiprogres.com/eng11-24.html

(Haïti Progrès/Port-au-Prince) November 18 marked the 201st anniversary of the battle of Vertières, the final major conflict of the Haitian revolution in 1803. On that day, the indigenous army decisively defeated French forces, and that night, French General Rochambeau surrendered to rebel General Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Forty-three days later, Dessalines declared the birth of the Republic of Haiti.

On the anniversary, former Haitian soldiers wanted to march through the capital with their weapons, as the now disbanded Haitian Army used to do, but were prevented from doing so by troops of the United Nations Mission for the Stabilization of Haiti (MINUSTAH). Several dozen former soldiers were forced to parade around the vicinity of their de facto headquarters at the old police academy in the capital’s Frères district, cordoned off by U.N. armored vehicles.

Earlier in the day, the former soldiers had tried to occupy the old Haitian Army headquarters, now the Culture Ministry, on the central Champ de Mars square, but withdrew after negotiations with U.N. officials.

Meanwhile, a few dozen former soldiers and their supporters marched through the northern city of Cap Haïtien on Thursday.

Despite the perhaps contrived appearances of tension, the former soldiers and occupation troops generally have cordial and collaborative relations. They carry out joint patrols in several towns.

However, a new anti-occupation and anti-coup force sent its first communiqué to the Haitian press for the Vertières anniversary, heralding a new stage in Haiti’s escalating uprising. The Dessalinien National Liberation Army (ADLN), whose origins remain unknown, took responsibility for the Oct. 24th attack on the Gros Morne police headquarters in Haiti’s northwest and promised future actions. The guerillas spray-painted their acronym on the station and neighboring buildings with the slogans “Down with the occupation! Down with the former soldiers! Down with the de facto government!” The following is the ADLN’s communique, which was sent to the Haitian press on Nov. 17.

Communique No. 0104

From: Command of the Dessalinien National Liberation Army (ADLN)

For: MINUSTAH occupation forces, the de facto government, the press and the Haitian people

On October 24, 2004 at half past midnight, the ADLN’s Artibonite Front surrounded the Gros Morne police station and asked the policemen to surrender. We clearly told the policemen to come out with their hands up, without weapons, through the front door of the station. We told them that if they did that, nobody would get hurt.

Two policemen chose to disobey the order we gave. They tried to escape out of the station’s back door. The unit covering the back of the station had to fire on them, and one of them was wounded. Another ADLN unit had to fire on a vehicle which tried to enter into the zone of operations. The ADLN column, which was very disciplined, entered the police station and took control of and removed from the scene a policeman who left out the front door as we had asked. Nothing happened to him. The station was empty. There was no furniture. We saw only three mattresses and a prisoner who was an old man.

This attack by the ADLN’s Artibonite Front on the Gros Morne police station is a warning to make known that the Dessalinien National Liberation Army (ADLN) has begun to fight for the total liberation of the Haitian people. We note that several of the press reports we heard about the ADLN attack on the Gros Morne police station spoke of a “bandit army”!

Once and for all, we make it known that the ADLN is not a mercenary army nor an army of bandit thugs. That is why, during the Gros Morne operation, when the ADLN unit met on the road with two groups of young men and women who had just left a disco, those people were not aggressed in any way. The guerrillas did not steal their possessions the way the zenglendo, Macoutes, and demobilized soldiers do everywhere around the country.

The warning we gave on October 24 was for: 1) MINUSTAH which is acting as a puppet for the United States. 2) The incompetent de facto puppet “technocrat” government of Alexandre and Latortue. 3) The so-called former “rebels,” former soldiers, former FRAPH members and Macoutes who have reemerged. 4) All the reactionary forces which hold the country in ignorance and misery for decades and who enjoy and take advantage of the crisis tormenting us today.

We say to all these little clique sectors that they cannot hide. ADLN will find them on the day, date and time of its own choosing.

We note that the MINUSTAH is the armed wing of big countries, like the U.S., which squeeze and occupy Third World countries like Haiti. Therefore, MINUSTAH is a legitimate target of the armed wing of the popular masses. That is why we call on progressive forces in Third World countries like Brazil, Argentina and Chili, to force their governments to remove their troops from Haiti immediately.

Aspiring for political liberty and a better life with organization, the popular masses can have Haiti take true independence, the same way that Jean-Jacques Dessalines managed to gather the aspirations and demands of the slave masses and freed the country from the French colonists grip. In the same way, the spirit of Dessalines has entered and is beginning to stir up the masses for a second independence. So ADLN tells all combatants fighting the dictatorship to continue the struggle.

Just like Dessalines, ADLN will not rest until the final victory.

Dessalinien National Liberation Army (ADLN)