13797: (Chamberlain) Supporters, critics of Haiti's president protest (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Michael Deibert

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Thousands of people poured
out of the slums and marched through the Haitian capital to support
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Monday in a bid to counter signs of
growing discontent with his government.
     In the central city of Gonaives, an anti-Aristide protest turned
violent as five people were shot and wounded by Aristide supporters,
private Radio Metropole reported.
     The protests and counter-demonstrations were the latest in a series of
rallies that have rattled the impoverished Caribbean nation in recent weeks
as opposition groups and students protest a faltering economy and what they
say is government interference in the school system and Aristide supporters
hold their own demonstrations.
     Aristide began his second term as president last year but a dispute
with the opposition Democratic Convergence over contested May 2000
legislative elections has snarled the political process and stalled over
$500 million in international aid to Haiti's 8 million people.
     At the pro-Aristide demonstration in the capital on Monday, hundreds
of marchers, accompanied by a traditional voodoo band, waved Haitian flags
and carried pictures of Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest who
rallied poor Haitians in the 1980s to overthrow the 30-year dictatorship of
the Duvalier family.
     "Aristide represents the power of the Haitian people," said Rene Civil
of the government-affiliated Youth Popular Power organization, one the
march's organizers. "You can see, as the young people of Haiti march for
him, he will finish his five years."
     The marchers briefly surrounded U.S. consular offices in downtown
Port-au-Prince, where some marchers chanted slogans sympathetic to Islamic
militant Osama Bin Laden. Some Haitians blame the United States for the
interruption of international aid to Haiti.
     At one point Monday, the sound of shots fired in the air by a marcher
sent the crowd running for cover, though no injuries were reported. By
afternoon black smoke billowed from tires that Aristide supporters had set
on fire in some quarters of the city but by most accounts the march
remained relatively peaceful.
     Government supporters gathered in front of the National Palace to
listen as speakers lambasted the U.S. government and Aristide's domestic
opposition.
     In Gonaives, two students and three other people were wounded when
demonstrators were fired upon by members of the "Cannibal Army," according
to media reports.
     The Cannibal Army is a street gang led by Amiot Metayer, a fugitive
who staged a spectacular jailbreak in Gonaives in August. Metayer headed a
pro-government rally in the city on Friday.
     "This is completely unacceptable," said Pierre Robert Auguste,
president of the Gonaives region's Association of Artibonite Business
Leaders, on Radio Metropole. "The police and the government support these
criminals, and now we must mobilize to change the situation."
     Haiti's largest private sector association on Sunday said people
acting under the protection of Haiti's high authorities had set up a
"climate of terror" and called for the arrest of several high-profile
government activists, including Metayer.