13236: Chamberlain posts (news item): Protests rock Haiti slum, block traffic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Sept 21 (Reuters) Riot police fired tear gas at
hundreds of demonstrators on Saturday as they protested over the
disappearance of a popular community leader in Haiti's capital
Port-au-Prince, witnesses said.
     The disturbance, which centered in the southern Port-au-Prince slum of
Martissant, was sparked by the disappearance on Thursday of Felix
Bien-Aime, former director of the Port-au-Prince cemetery and a political
activist affiliated with the Lavalas Family party of Haitian president
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     Neighborhood residents said that Haitian National Police officers
arrested Bien-Aime after he had a traffic dispute with government
officials.
     Police spokesman Jean-Dady Simeon denied on Friday that Bien-Aime was
in police custody. Bien-Aime's car was found abandoned in an area outside
the capital that once served as a favored dumping ground for the bodies of
the victims of Haiti's dictatorships.
     Protesters burned tires along Route Nationale 2, a major artery that
connects the capital with the country's southwest
  and hurled rocks and bottles at police as they tried to intervene,
witnesses said.
     "Traffic is completely blocked and there are flames all across the
road," said local resident Blanchard Leroy via telephone from the district.
"No cars are being allowed to pass."
     There were no immediate reports of casualties. Haiti's Aristide began
his second term as President in this impoverished Caribbean nation of 8
million in January 2001. He has since been locked in a two-year dispute
with the Democratic Convergence opposition coalition over May 2000
legislative elections that his opponents contend were biased to favor
Aristide's party.
     The deadlock has resulted in the suspension of more than $500 million
in international aid.
     In a resolution passed earlier this month, the Organization of
American States called for a restoration of aid to the country, as well as
calling for disarmament of political militants and the arrests of those
responsible for violence.
     The disturbance Saturday was reminiscent of an incident that occurred
in August in the provincial city of Gonaives.
     There, a jailbreak by another imprisoned former government supporter,
Amiot Metayer, resulted in the escape of more than 150 prisoners, the
burning of several government buildings and three days of rioting as
demonstrators called for Aristide's resignation.