In a country that’s already divided, Carnival, a time of celebration and excitement on the streets, is divided too. This year’s event threatens to boil over. In the capital, it’s a government event. In the north, rebels are celebrating victory. One by one, towns are falling into rebel hands, and they’re threatening to march all the way to the Presidential palace.

In the capital on this Carnival weekend, most Haitians are hoping for the best. These men are too poor even to go to the main event, but they know tensions there could boil over.

LOCAL MAN:
“Well it would be bad to have violence, because Carnival’s where people vent their frustration. That’s where the poor people and the rich people come together and vent. It would be regrettable if there was violence”.

The recent trouble has only made life harder for these people. But they aren’t ready to abandon their President, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who rose to power as a preacher in these very slums.

LOCAL MAN TWO:
“He could be a good President, it’s other people in the country who are preventing progress, because he loves all the poor people. He’s got these problems, but he’s still one of us, and we’re with him”.

The reality is the charismatic leader who rose to power on a wave of popular support is now holed up in a Presidential palace. And for many Haitians, he’s no longer an inspiration, but a brutal dictator, and while his country is falling apart, he has become absent, apparently doing remarakbly little to hold on to the hearts of Haitians. He’s only appearing in a series of carefully stage-managed media events, repeating the same message over and over.

JEAN-BERTRAND ARISTIDE:
I will not go ahead with any terrorist. It’s linked to what I just said – whoever you are, once you choose non-violence, I am with you. If you choose violence, I am against you”.

On the other side of town, there’s an equally defiant mood. These students have been at the fore of an opposition movement to oust the President. Unwilling to participate in a government-sponsored Carnival, they’re staging one of their own.

The students are taking to the streets daily, forcing their message out.

HAITIAN STUDENT, OLSNER FEVRY:
“Right now Haiti is going to hell, because right now Aristide is using thugs, murderers and gang members to gain control over the opposition. People are dying every single day. We’ve never known a situation like this in the country since our independence”.

Every day there’s mounting evidence of how volatile the soituation is here. The mood can change in an instant. Within an hour of leaving the compound, the student Carnival becomes a street battle. It is met by armed pro-government supporters called Chimers. Wearing civilian clothes, they emerge from crowds to devastating effect. What they do is not something they want the international media to see. The government has agreed under international pressure to reform, but that hasn’t changed the situation on the ground.

Around the corner from the Carnival stages, cars are burning in the streets. Olsner Fevry is looking for friends hurt at the carnival protest. At least twenty students were injured, mostly by pellets sprayed by shotguns.

WOUNDED STUDENT:
“Definitely Aristide is playing his last card. We’re not giving up”.

The poilitical oppoisiton is only one threat. On a whole other front in the north, a rebel force is gaining momentum. Their mission is no different from the students – getting rid of Aristide – but their tactics are more deadly.

The rebels are expanding their turf almost daily now, in a show of violence that’s hard to ignore. They’re targetting Aristide’s police force, which is increasingly showing an unwillingness to fight. The core group used to be called the Canibal army, and their leader now claims the city of Gonaives as an independent state.

REBEL LEADER BUTEUR METAYER:
“I’ll always be the President. I am the President.”

Buteur Metayer, the man who says he’s now President, is the brother of a former Canibal Army leader allegedly assassinated by Aristide’s henchmen last September. The rebels pay tribute to him with the help of a voodoo priestess every day. His killing sparked their declaration of war.

BUTEUR METAYER:
“These are Aristide’s guns that are fighting against Aristide now, and we have more guns.”

The Canibal Army was Aristide’s creation, but the monster turned. The killers now form the government in these fallen towns. They’ve joined forces with exiled military leaders to form a small but effective force of several hundred men.

It’s a measure of the extreme hatred of Aristide in the north that many people would prefer the rebel killers, even though, like the rest of the opposition, they aren’t putting up a serious alternative leader or policies.

We don’t know if or when the rebels might reach Port-au-Prince, but that threat hangs over the capital, increasing the sense of unease in an already volatile situation.

CHANNEL 4 NARRATOR, ELIZABETH JONES:
“Even on our way to Carnival we stumbled on a barricade at the end of this street, and there were students gathered here. Police were running up and down the street, trying to disperse them, but it hasn’t worked. There’s actually more and more of them coming and they’re throwing rocks, there’ve been shots fired. The tension in this town is really palpable”.

For the moment, pro-Aristide supporters dominate the Carnival crowd. The police presence is obvious, but the unknown and more sinister factor is the presence of Chimers among the revellers. The place is full of rumours about possible sabotage by either the opposition or rebels. With Carnival, the war just may come right up to the Presidential palace.