President Jean-Bertrand Aristide may be the duly elected leader of Haiti, but there is at least one other man who calls himself president. Gang leader Buteur Metayer and his ragtag army control this port city where the barren landscape looks and feels like a cross between scenes from the movie “Mad Max” and the devastated Somali capital of Mogadishu. It was Metayer’s Feb. 5 takeover of Gonaives–Haiti’s fourth-largest city–that sparked insurrections in a dozen Haitian towns and fueled a growing political crisis that threatens Aristide’s presidency. Teenage gunmen wearing sunglasses and combat helmets roam streets littered with smoldering tires, gutted cars, broken bottles and piles of garbage. Stores are shuttered. Food is scarce. The city government no longer exists. Family members evacuate patients from the hospital in wheelbarrows with intravenous drips still attached to their arms. Full Story
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