VOICEOVER : Everyone was expecting trouble. Port Au Prince, the capital of Haiti, was seething with protest and counter protest. At stake – the future of the President, Jean Bertrand Aristide. Many Haitians want him to resign.

REPORTER : We’re right in the middle between the pro Aristide guys on this side. – they’re shouting “Aristide, Aristide!” - and the people on the other side who are shouting “Abba Aristide!” which means “Down with Aristide”

VOICEOVER : The President supporters soon had reinforcements.
An organised gang from one of the capital’s many slums. They were in a mood to kill. Haiti is collapsing into lawlessness. And its people are turning on each other.

TITLE : VOODOU NATION

VOICEOVER : Throughout Haiti’s history military dictators have used terror to control an impoverished population. These days there’s democracy, but still no peace. Haiti’s poor were once united by hatred for their despotic rulers. Now with economic collapse and political disintegration, the poor are attacking the poor.

REPORTER : Right at the other end of the street the people we can see they’re the opposition demonstrating and that’s where the shots went off.

VOICEOVER : Haitians hoped democracy would bring prosperity. A decade later the poorest country in the western hemisphere has become even poorer.

REPORTER : This is the General Hospital.

VOICEOVER : Some of the Presidents supporters had been injured in the shoot out. To get them immediate treatment gang members took the hospital over by force.

REPORTER : So in this room here there are four people with gunshot wounds

VOICEOVER : Nobody in the hospital dared oppose the gang's demands. The opposition alleges these groups – the Chimeres - have been created and armed at the President’s instigation. The gang instructed us to say these were innocent victims. After some hours, a courageous woman asked the gang members to respect the work of the hospital and leave. She was shouted down. It wasn’t a good day to need treatment. Eighty per cent of Haitians are without work. One in five children die before they reach five. Every night there are power cuts. Haiti is a country that doesn’t work. The next morning everyone feared another gun battle. I joined students demonstrating against gang violence. At the place where a student had been shot the week before they held a lament in his memory. You’d think the opposition would capitalise on this anger. But they’re divided. And Haitians feel powerless.

REPORTER : They’re shouting we’re tired, we’re tired, we’re tired of counting dead people.

VOICEOVER : Suddenly the police sealed off the streets around the demonstrators. A few blocks away the President was about to make a show of strength. Many may hate him, but Jean Bertrand Aristide remains Haiti’s most charismatic politician. Born in the slums, this former priest was the country’s first democratically elected leader. Aristide’s impoverished followers still believe he will lift them out of misery. But the government’s record is one of mismanagement and corruption. America and Europe have blocked aid following allegations his supporters rigged elections. Protected by his foreign bodyguards, the President has been touring the country, blaming poverty on the international aid embargo. Haiti, he says, is the victim of economic apartheid. Aristide is getting cheer after cheer as he emphasises that Haiti was the first Black-led republic in the world. But the poor are turning their backs on politics and starting to live according to different rules. I'd heard beyond the capital many Haitians are pledging their loyalty not to political parties but to powerful gangs, many run by criminals.

REPORTER : We’re on our way to Gonaives a city said to be under siege due to the fighting of two gang leaders Metayer and Tatoun.

VOICEOVER : Metayer’s followers had broken him out of jail back in July. I wanted to see if I could meet him. Gonaives is 70 miles to the north.

REPORTER : We’ve just driven along this road and there’s this body and our driver is saying that you can see from the marks on his chest that he’s been tortured. Everybody’s just driving past. I’m just ringing the police. Our driver said they won’t do anything any way but it’s the least we can do.

DRIVER : So maybe this guy will be there until dogs eat him

VOICEOVER : We arrived at the outskirts of Gonaives.

REPORTER : All these people here are waiting to go to Port Au Prince but it seems there’s absolutely no public transport available because of rising fuel prices. The public transport system appears to have broken down entirely.

VOICEOVER : Not only had the price of fuel risen steeply. There wasn’t enough of it. A pick up driver explained Gonaives was a town without law.

MAN : He’s saying first of all there’s no police, nobody’s policing the country. But also with shortages like this people will just turn on each other because they will fight against each other to get to petrol. He’s saying that the problem in Haiti is that no one’s taking responsibility for anything. The government don’t so that even if you want to complain about a situation like this, the fuel crisis, where do you go to where do you voice your anger.

REPORTER : We’ve just heard gunshots going off at the filling station. So what the guy on the pick up is saying is probably true. The situation is so tense that a lot of things could happen even this afternoon.

VOICEOVER : Further on we came to one of the front line areas, in the war between the gangs struggling to control this city. I was told a gang, the Cannibal Army, had attacked this neighbourhood to persuade its inhabitants to switch allegiances. Everyone who could was running away fleeing. Those who weren’t fast enough were pulled out of their houses. He and his brother were beaten up and the cannibal army took all their belongings threw it on the street and set fire to them. This man said that he’d been shot during the raid.

DOCTOR : So this is an x-ray of the man’s body who’s been hit by a bullet. . You can see the bullet there. He’s very lucky.

REPORTER : So the attackers also came here with a machete? So we’re in one of the houses that was destroyed and looted by the cannibal army. The people obviously don’t live here anymore. They’ve run away. They were saying that most of the people who lived on this street and whose houses were destroyed are now living with relatives or neighbours.

VOICEOVER : That night our driver navigated us through the maze of barricades that mark gangs’ territories. There’s not a single person driving down the streets. I wanted to track down Amiot Metayer widely believed to be the leader of the Cannibal Army. On the edge of town there was a voodoo festival. There I hoped to find womeone who knew where Metayer was. A mix of ancient African religions and Christianity, voodoo is one thing that unites most Haitians. A government official promised to find Metayer (the next day ?) Eventually I met the Town Engineer, Emanuel Longchamps. He said he’d introduce me to the gang leader the next day.

EMANUEL LONGCHAMPS : You’re enjoying tonight?

REPORTER : Yes I am. I am enjoying it.

VOICEOVER : I was told to come to the local government offices the very next morning. The cannibal army had burned the town hall. The government offices were in a bar. The gangs burned down the town hall so what’s left of the local government is run from a bar.

EMMANUEL LONGCHAMPS : Bonjour.

VOICEOVER : Emanuel was in his office

REPORTER : Good afternoon . How are you

EMMANUEL LONGCHAMPS : Very well it’s a pleasure meeting you

REPORTER : I hope we’re not coming too early but I thought we’d take you up on..

EMMANUEL LONGCHAMPS : On my offer?

VOICEOVER : I was told to wait while he looked for Metayer.
That’s perfect. I was slightly worried that he was going to go back on his word because Metayer is quite a controversial figure in Gonaieves. But if he’s really going over there for us then we could get an in to get see someone who’s really difficult to meet He’s just spotted Metayer. So we’re going to go over and see if we can fix an interview

REPORTER : Je m’appelle Juliana

VOICEOVER : It was so surreal. He was a wanted man. Yet we’d been introduced by a government official . He agreed to meet me later.

REPORTER : Ok Merci beaucoup. Merci

VOICEOVER : I was beginning to realise that this was Metayer’s town – not President Aristide’s. That afternoon we drove into the cannibal army’s heartland. 20,000 people live in the slum district of Raboteau. It’s where Metayer gets his foot soldiers. By the standards of Raboteau Metayer’s home is a palace. His place was watched over by gang members.

REPORTER : Bonjour. Ca Va?

VOICEOVER : In the days of military dictatorship Metayer organised the slum’s self defence force. He was now Raboteau’s ruler, the opposition says the self-defence force has become his well-paid militia. He denies it.

REPORTER : I was just wondering how people here make their living. And Amiot was saying that most of the men are going out sea fishing and the women are selling small things.

VOICEOVER : Metayer was always close to President Aristide. But he told me how last year, under international pressure, Aristide ordered his arrest on murder charges. Aristide had miscalculated. He had the support of the population on his side and when the people heard he was in jail they actually took bulldozers and bulldozed down the walls of the jail and he went free together with about another 150 inmates. Metayer doesn’t expect to return to jail.

REPORTER : And Amiot was just saying that he’s got the full support of the population and that if anyone would come in from the outside, political opponents, other gangs, he’s got so much support from people here that no one could take him out.

VOICEOVER : People here have no respect for the government.

REPORTER : These people are saying that if they try to arrest Amiot they’ll have to arrest the whole population because that’s how much support he has. I’m being asked is he the only type of person who can offer that type of protection to the community saying that at the moment it’s me, and maybe there will be another one and maybe I’m replaceable but for the moment it’s me.

VOICEOVER : To keep Metayer on their side the Government has given his brother a plum job.

REPORTER : So this is the port area where Amiot and his brother are taking us. Because Amiot’s brother is actually the second in command of the port

VOICEOVER : It's a government owned port, but the Cannibal Army provides the security. Amiot Metayer’s brother is in charge of handing out jobs.

REPORTER : Are you the person who employs people?

AMIOT : Yes I’m supposed to do that. Sure.

REPORTER : So between you and your brother Amiot you’re really important people in the community because you are the two people who are handing out the jobs to everybody in Raboteaus.

AMIOT : Two brothers is the father of Gonaieves.

REPORTER : So you’re the first family of Raboteau?

AMIOT : Yes

VOICEOVER : Metayer says the port is run strictly by the book. But locals told me it’s a smugglers’ paradise, and Metayer admits taking a 25% cut on all goods. Suddenly we saw uniforms. It was the City’s Chief of Police and his bodyguards. He should have arrested Metayer. Instead he asked if we had permission to film. Metayer’s brother explained we were his guests. The police chief and his men backed off. It was a demonstration of where the real power in this town lies.

REPORTER : We’re going to see if the director of the police force is going to give us an interview

VOICEOVER : To my surprise he agreed. I asked why he hadn’t arrested Metayer.

POLICE DIRECTOR : Metayer has not been arrested because an order has not been received from the Justice Ministry. For his jailbreak the civilian population has to be blamed. But until they receive orders as the police they can do absolutely nothing about it.

VOICEOVER : Power had shifted from the Government to the gangs. The violence is such that even his office has been attacked. Those are bullet holes in his blinds. This neighbourhood was ruled by a gang that’s allied itself to the political opposition. They were protesting against the rise in fuel prices. We’ve hardly left the centre of town and there’s the first roadblock up. The police did not dare attack the Cannibal Army. But this gang was weaker.

REPORTER : We’re just finding out that one local person got actually killed this morning when the roadblocks were being built. People say that he was nothing but a bystander who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and he was hit by a police bullet. Is he from this area?

LOCAL : Yes

REPORTER : Do you know his family?

LOCAL : Yes

VOICEOVER : The dead man was Sorrel Volny. I went to meet his family.

REPORTER : This lady is actually the sister of the man who got killed this morning and she sent her brother out to get something from the streets.

SISTER : He met a few friends and suddenly these people heard bullets. His brother shouted to them to get down on the ground and then it was her brother who was hit by a bulllet.

REPORTER : This man was next to him. He blamed a special police unit but they denied responsibility. He says he wouldn’t be able to identify the policeman who shot his friend. But he does know it was the special unit because of the grey uniforms they were wearing.

VOICEOVER : Sorel’s sister said if we went with her to the morgue we’d see that it was no stray bullet that had killed her brother. Our arrival caused consternation

REPORTER : We’re just being told that we have to come with an official paper, which the family was given this morning. Now these ladies haven’t got the paper.

VOICEOVER : But the sister demanded her right to show us the body. They couldn’t find a lawyer who’d act for them. There would be no post mortem.

REPORTER : Well the fact that it was a stray bullet can definitely be ruled out. The bullet’s straight in his forehead.

VOICEOVER : For many Haitians the message is simple: join a gang – but make sure it’s powerful enough to protect you. We were getting under the skin of life in Gonaives, it seemed we’d been asking too many questions. Gang members and local officials who’d been friendly now became hostile.

REPORTER : We’ve been spending a lot of time in town and every time we even saw the tip of a gun, people have been hiding guns from us. And suddenly word is spreading that we went to the morgue yesterday and we filmed Sorrel’s body and suddenly just in the last few minutes people were walking up and down in front of us displaying guns openly, and that’s a clear signal.

VOICEOVER : It was time to leave.

REPORTER : We’ve just managed to pick up somebody who knows an alternative way out because the roadblocks are still in action so we couldn’t even get out of town that way. But this man in front of me says he knows another way.

VOICEOVER : Across the globe poor people are searching for new identities that offer a sense of belonging in a hostile world. The gangs give Haiti’s disaffected people just such an identity. But the future they offer is a desolate one.