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At first the smoke billowing from the national penitentiary in the Haitian capital seemed of no consequence. On 1 December, US Secretary of State Colin Powell was visiting Haitian President Boniface Alexandre. The UN peacekeeping force in the capital, Port-au-Prince, was preoccupied with guarding the national palace where Powell's visit was taking place. But meanwhile, in the prison, something terrible was unfolding. According to official reports, prisoners in a three-storey cell block called 'Titanic' had rioted, breaking free from their cells, setting fire to mattresses and brandishing water pipes as weapons. Prison guards called in a special police unit to help put down the uprising, and officials later said that seven prisoners had been killed and more than 40 detainees and guards wounded during the fracas. But according to prisoners and others interviewed by The Observer, this is a woeful understatement. The government, they say, is concealing a savage bloodbath in which dozens of detainees were killed by police and guards. The allegations are contested by officials but, if true, the killings at the penitentiary represent another black mark for Haiti's interim government, which has come under fire for allegedly perpetrating and tolerating human rights abuses ever since taking over last March from the ousted former president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. [more]

Freed Haitian Priest Gerard Jean-Juste: Aristide Supporters "Are Not Only Targeted, We Are Being Chased" [more]