14012: Bellegarde-Smith: Haiti: Death of Gerald Kawly (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: P D Bellegarde-Smith <pbs@csd.uwm.edu>

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Prominent businessman shot dead in Haiti's capital
By Michael Deibert

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Dec 6 (Reuters) Gerald Khawly, a prominent Haitian
businessman and brother of the former mayor of the southern city of Jacmel,
was shot and killed in Port-au-Prince on Friday evening, police and
relatives said.

Khawly, 64, was shot in the head by two men at a gas station which he owned
near the capital's Sylvio Cator Stadium, relatives said. His son-in-law,
Pascha Vorbe, who was with him, was shot in the neck.

The suspected killers escaped on a motorcycle and had not been captured,
police said.

Khawly was taken to Port-au-Prince's Canape Vert Hospital where he was
pronounced dead. Vorbe would be airlifted to Miami's Jackson Memorial
Hospital for surgery, relatives said.

Khawly's family is prominent in coastal Jacmel, where his brother, Jacques,
the former mayor, is president of the Chamber of Commerce.

The killing came in the wake of a spasm of violence in Haiti as President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide faces a barrage of criticism over the disintegrating
economy and for violence allegedly committed by his supporters.

Government supporters beat anti-Aristide demonstrators in Port-au-Prince on
Tuesday and five other protesters were shot and wounded in the provincial
city of Petit Goave.

At least four people were wounded by gunfire two weeks earlier as Aristide
supporters set up barricades of flaming tires around the capital and fired
automatic weapons from the backs of pick-up trucks.

At least five people, including a judge, have been killed in political
violence since November 17th.

A general strike called last week by Aristide's political opposition and 15
business groups in response to the violence saw hundreds of businesses
closed around the country

Aristide, a former Catholic priest, was elected president in 1990 but ousted
in a coup months later. U.S. troops helped restore him to power in 1994 and
he won a second term in Nov. 2000. Since then he has been mired in a dispute
over May 2000 legislative elections, which has stalled foreign aid for his 8
million people as the economy has deteriorated.