18151: Benodin: Haitian student shot and killed as demonstrators burn coffin in front of U.S. Consulate (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Robert Benodin <r.benodin@worldnet.att.net>

Haitian student shot and killed as demonstrators burn coffin in front of
U.S. Consulate
28 janvier 2004 (AP)
Angry students protesting against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide burned a
coffin in front of the U.S. Consulate on Wednesday. One student was shot and
killed.
Riot police fired tear gas and warning shots to disperse students and
Aristide partisans who were pelting the demonstrators with rocks.
One student was shot and killed near the consulate, apparently by a tear gas
canister that punctured his back and caused internal bleeding, said Dr. Eric
Cantave, who removed the canister from the student’s back.
Dozens of students and parents are crowded into the capital’s main Canape
Vert Hospital, sobbing and shouting antigovernment slogans.
"We’ll continue lighting the torch of the movement !" University of Haiti
student leader Herve Saintilus said. "The United States is an important
factor in the crisis. It has to assume its responsibility."
Officials temporarily shut down the U.S. Consulate because of the unrest,
said Judith Trunzo, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy, which remained open
and is about a mile (kilometer) away from the consulate.
Police have ordered demonstrations in the capital be held in a seaside
square, miles away from the National Palace. The new regulation came Tuesday
as 15,000 people turned out for an anti-government protest.
There was no immediate police comment about Wednesday’s shooting.
Haiti has been in turmoil since Aristide’s Lavalas Family party swept 2000
legislative elections that observers said were flawed. In the past four
months, at least 49 people have been killed.
Caribbean leaders have been trying to solve the country’s three-year
political impasse, meeting in the Bahamas last week with Haitian opposition
members and with Aristide on Sunday.
Aristide will meet with regional leaders on Friday in Jamaica.
The opposition says it will not hold talks with the government or
participate in new elections unless Aristide resigns. Aristide has said he
plans to serve out his term until 2006.
"Aristide is pitting the police against the people," opposition politician
Evans Paul said.
Police broke up three student demonstrations last week with tear gas, saying
they weren’t complying with a 1987 decree requiring protesters to submit
plans two days before and to give names of participants.
Few pro-government demonstrations have been disrupted, prompting criticism
from rights groups who say Aristide’s government is trampling on a
constitutional guarantee that protects freedom of assembly.