13752: Chamberlain: Protests sweep Haitian city for second day (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PETIT GOAVE, Haiti, Nov 21 (Reuters) - Holding up a bloody school
uniform as a banner, thousands of high school students and their supporters
marched in the provincial Haitian city of Petit Goave on Thursday,
denouncing a police shooting of seven students during a similar protest a
day earlier.
     The protesters called for the ouster of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
     "Aristide is a criminal," sang the blue-uniformed students as they
marched from their high school past the police station where the shooting
occurred.
     "The police are drug dealers and kidnappers!" others shouted.
     Seven students were wounded in the city on Wednesday as they tried to
tear down a Haitian flag from the local police station. They were calling
for Aristide, who began his second term as Haiti's president in February
2001, to be replaced with a leader who would better address Haiti's dire
economic situation and against an increased tax students must pay to take
final exams.
     Since his inauguration, Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, has
been locked in a dispute with the opposition Democratic Convergence
coalition over May 2000 legislative elections that opponents contend were
biased to favor Aristide's Lavalas Family political party.
     The deadlock has stalled more than $500 million in international aid.
     Protests also gripped the capital of Port-au-Prince and the central
city of Gonaives on Thursday.
     Several thousand university students in the capital, already coming
off weeks of demonstrations against what they called government
interference in the state university system, marched to the National Palace
in solidarity with the Petit Goave students, destroying photos of Aristide
and calling for his ouster, witnesses said.
     The demonstrations continue days of unrest in the poor Caribbean
country of 8 million. An anti-government rally in the northern city of Cap
Haitien on Sunday was estimated to have drawn more than 10,000 people.
     Inflation in Haiti has risen 16 percent in the last year and the
Haitian currency, the gourde, has lost 40 percent of its value.
     In Petit Goave, as the marchers reached Route National 2, a main
thoroughfare through the country's southwest, police left and students were
pelted by bottles and rocks thrown from behind trees and high walls. No
serious injuries were reported.
     Students ran for cover, shouting references to a local radio
journalist, Brignol Lindor, who was hacked to death by government partisans
near the town on Dec. 3, 2001.
     "You murdered Brignol, we won't forget!" they yelled.
     Opposition groups said they plan a large rally in Petit Goave on Dec.
3 as a memorial to Lindor.