Aristide supporters step-up protest
Associated Press

Port-au -Prince — Supporters of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide hurled stones and fired guns on streets littered with debris and overturned cars Saturday in a third day of violent protests demanding Mr. Aristide's return.

At least seven people have been killed in the violence so far — including three policemen whose headless bodies were found Friday. A fourth policeman was also shot and killed on the first day of fighting.

“Aristide's partisans have begun an urban guerrilla operation that they call Operation Baghdad,” human rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said Saturday. “The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in Haiti.”

Mr. Aristide's Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Aristide's first government. They also demanded an end to “the occupation” and “the invasion” by foreign troops — referring to the U.S.-led force that followed Aristide's February ouster and the UN peacekeepers who have taken over since June.

Mr. Aristide has accused U.S. agents of kidnapping him when he was flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-chartered jet Feb. 29 amid a bloody rebellion. The U.S. government insists Mr. Aristide left of his own free will.

Most vendors stayed home Saturday morning as supporters of Mr. Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, took to the streets.

Masked gunmen were shooting into the air early Saturday morning in the traditionally pro-Aristide neighbourhood of Bel Air, private radio station Signal FM reported.

“There is shooting. They are throwing rocks. People can't walk on the street,” said Bonhonne Esperance, 42, an unemployed security guard in the area.

Gunfire also erupted early Saturday in the slum of La Saline, and some people threw rocks at cars, residents said.

At daybreak a team of Haitian police patrolled downtown Port-au-Prince by car, training their rifles down busy side streets. No UN peacekeepers were seen in the area.

Brazilian troops came under fire while on patrol Thursday in the traditionally pro-Aristide slum of Cite Soleil, a seaside slum teeming with gangsters loyal to Aristide. UN spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said the Brazilians returned fire but no injuries were reported.

The Haitian broadcaster Radio Metropole reported that at least one civilian was shot and killed at a pro-Aristide demonstration Friday. Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said police also killed two gang leaders and wounded a third Thursday in Cite Soleil.

Tensions have exploded in Haiti as the country struggles to recover from catastrophic floods caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne two weeks ago. The storm killed more than 1,550 and left some 900 missing, most presumed dead. It also left an estimated 300,000 homeless, some 200,000 of them in the northwestern city of Gonaïves.

The storm's aftermath has tied up some 750 of the 3,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Haiti.

On Friday in Port-au-Prince's western suburb of Martissant, protesters fired shots in the air, blocked a highway with piles of burning tires and smashed car windows, witnesses said. Radio Metropole said at least one person was killed there and two injured.

Haitian Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue on Friday reiterated a pledge for new elections in 2005.

“We will not use violence and all of our problems must be solved through elections, which will take place next year,” Mr. Latortue said during a visit to Coral Gables, Fla.

The U.S.-backed interim government that replaced Mr. Aristide has proved ineffectual in responding to the urgent needs in Gonaïves, where hungry residents have repeatedly mobbed relief trucks and gangsters have stolen relief supplies.

The catastrophic floods from Jeanne came four months after May floods along the southern Haitian-Dominican border that killed more than 3,000 — and nearly seven months after Mr. Aristide's ouster.

In February, a street gang in Gonaïves rose up against Mr. Aristide, sparking a rebellion joined by soldiers from the former army that Mr. Aristide disbanded in 1995.

Mr. Aristide's departure in February came as many Haitians appeared to be growing increasingly disillusioned about deepening poverty in the poorest nation in the Americas.

Mr. Aristide, a former priest, became Haiti's first freely elected president in 1990. He was ousted within months by the army, restored to power by U.S. troops in 1994, then forced to step down by U.S. pressure and a term limit. He was re-elected in 2000.