Bus Kills 14 Supporters of Aristide : Haiti: Dozens wounded when pro-military assailant rams vehicle through demonstration. Driver escapes.

L.A. Times Archives

Oct. 10, 1994 12 AM PT

<i> From the Washington Post</i>

DJIMEZEN, Haiti — A pro-military assailant deliberately drove a bus through a crowd of several hundred demonstrators who were demanding the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Sunday, crushing and killing at least 14 people and severely wounding a dozen more, witnesses at the scene said.

It was the bloodiest attack on pro-Aristide activists in months and came less than a week before Aristide is to return to power.

Aristide’s followers have been emboldened by the presence of U.S. troops across the country, provoking attacks by paramilitaries.

In this town about 50 miles west of Port-au-Prince, witnesses said a truck had passed by the demonstration several minutes before the deadly bus did, and the truck’s driver warned the marchers to watch out. He said the bus driver was a member of a paramilitary, anti-Aristide group known as FRAPH, and that he wanted to kill those in the rally.

“He told us the bus would kill us, but we did not believe it,” one witness said. “We just kept on singing.”

FRAPH, which stands for the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti, has been a prime target of U.S. forces seeking to disarm illegal, paramilitary groups that have inflicted violence on civilians here since Aristide was overthrown.

A similar incident was reported near the northern city of St. Marc on Friday. At least three and perhaps seven people at a pro-Aristide rally reportedly were killed when a truck careened into the group.

Sunday, “a white bus came through at excessive speed, ran through the crowd and killed . . . people,” said Capt. Kevin Donovan, leader of U.S. troops who arrived at the scene after the incident. “At least 12 more were evacuated to the hospital in Les Cayes (40 miles to the west). It was a pro-Aristide rally, and those in the bus were clearly trying to stop the demonstration. It was deliberate--there is no question.”

The predominant role of U.S. troops in the aftermath of the incident underscored how little public responsibility the Haitian army is assuming. While the U.S. troops picked up a handful of Haitian army soldiers on the way to the crash site, the Haitians huddled in a pickup truck while U.S. soldiers blocked the roads, picked up the bodies and dealt with the angry, stunned crowd.

U.S. troops arrived in Humvees to carry away the bodies sprawled in pools of blood. Hundreds of people who had been participating in the rally gathered in stunned silence broken only by the wailing of grief-stricken and shocked relatives. The demonstration was being held on National Route 2, a main highway that is not much traveled now because an international oil embargo has limited transportation.

“Everyone was waving leaves and shouting, ‘Long live Aristide!’ ” said Jean Labard, 26, whose cousin was killed. “Suddenly a big white (bus) came racing through. It made S’s, trying to run people over and crushing them. People were screaming, and it chased after them. It ran over them. We were screaming.”

Dozens of other participants gave similar accounts, describing in detail how the bus deliberately hit as many marchers as possible. Marches were being held across the region Sunday, and reporters passed several other large, peaceful gatherings of people waving branches and pictures of Aristide.

Donovan said the license number and name of the bus--”Thank You My God”--had been turned over to the Haitian police and military. By late afternoon neither the bus nor the driver had been found.