RAM to stop playing it. While the band played on, Morse was physically being carried out of the hotel by armed men. Using a wireless microphone, he sang in a verse in Creole that was not in the song, "Kadja bosou a ye ma prale" - a prayer to the Vodou loa to grant him safe passage. His kidnappers released him and took another captive instead. Concerned about the safety of their fans, the band ceased performing for several weeks. Throughout the political upheaval of Haiti in the 1990s, RAM's regular Thursday evening performance at the Hotel Oloffson was one of the few regular social events in Port-au-Prince in which individuals of various political positions and allegiances could congregate. Regular attendees of the performances included foreign guests at the hotel, members of the military, paramilitary attachés and former Tonton Macoutes, members of the press, diplomats, foreign aid workers, artists, and businessmen. Attendees included both black Haitians and members of the nation's less populous racial groups. Until September 19, 1994, when U.S. military troops arrived to oust the Cédras regime, the performances at the Oloffson offered a unique situation for all parties involved and helped sustain the band, despite its confrontations with the junta, in a period when many other artists either fled the country, were persecuted, or killed. After the Regime: 1994–2004 Although the band supported Aristide and Lavalas during the years of the Cédras regime, like many other Haitians, Morse began to grow disillusioned with the nation's president and his new political party, Fanmi Lavalas. Aristide aides approached the band to first request songs favorable to the government and later threaten the band when Morse refused. In 1998, Manno Charlemagne, the newly elected Fanmi Lavalas mayor of Port-au-Prince and himself an accomplished professional musician who had lived in exile during the Cédras junta, sent armed men to the Oloffson. They dismantled the float on which RAM was scheduled to perform in the upcoming annual Carnival on February 24. The mayor had taken offense to the lyrics of one of the band's songs, which he interpreted as an accusation of corruption. After the destruction of the float, the band was told they would be allowed to perform on a flatbed truck. However, the brakes on the truck were sabotaged and during the Carnival procession, the truck swerved into the crowd, killing eight and forcing the members of the band to