13761: (Chamberlain) Gunfire, barricades as protests hit Haiti capital (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 22 (Reuters) - Gunfire erupted and
protesters set fire to tires in the Haitian capital on Friday as supporters
of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide took to the streets to protest calls
for his resignation.
     "Aristide was elected and he will never leave power!" said a young man
in front of a pile of burning tires blocking a busy main street, the Route
de Delmas.
     Roads in the capital's Petionville, Carrefour and Champs de Mars areas
were also blocked with flaming barricades and many of the city's businesses
and schools were shuttered.
     It was not clear who was responsible for the shooting but there were
no immediate reports of injuries.
     The counter-protests followed several days of demonstrations in
different parts of the impoverished Caribbean nation by protesters calling
for Aristide to step down.
     "We are in the streets to control the situation, Aristide must
continue in power," pro-government activist Rene Civil, leader of the Youth
for People's Power organization, told local Radio Metropole.
     "They protest to make people respect the democratic decision of the
Haitian people and the Haitian constitution," Jonas Petit, acting head of
Aristide's Lavalas Family political party, told Reuters. "Aristide was
elected for five years and he will serve five years."
     Discontent with Aristide, who began a second term as president in
February last year but has been mired in a dispute over elections with the
main political opposition, has flared into a series of large demonstrations
over the last week.
     On Thursday, thousands of high school students and their supporters
rallied in the provincial city of Petit Goave, southwest of the capital,
holding aloft a bloody school uniform and protesting the shootings a day
earlier of seven high-school students by police.
     The students, who were calling for Aristide to be replaced and
protesting against an increased tax students must pay to take their final
exams, were wounded as they tried to tear down the Haitian flag from the
local police station.
     Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, has been locked in a dispute
with the opposition Democratic Convergence coalition over the results of
contested May 2000 elections, which his opponents contend were biased in
his party's favor.
     The political deadlock has stalled up to $500 million in international
aid, adding to the woes of the 8 million inhabitants of the poorest country
in the Americas.
     Anti-Aristide protests also hit Port-au-Prince and the central city of
Gonaives Thursday and a large anti-government rally was held in the
northern city of Cap Haitien Sunday.
     Radio Haiti Inter reported that Minister of Education Myrtho Celestin
had resigned on Thursday, though the government gave no details about her
departure.
     Aristide, Haiti's first freely elected leader, was deposed by the
military soon after taking power in 1991. He was restored by a U.S.-led
invasion force in 1994 and disbanded the Haitian army shortly afterward.
     He was re-elected president in November 2000 in elections boycotted by
an opposition still angry over parliamentary elections earlier that year.