20270: (Chamberlain) Haiti's poor want exiled ``King Aristide'' back (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Ibon Villelabeitia

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, March 11  (Reuters) - A wall in one of
Port-au-Prince's poorest slums displays a painting of ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide sitting on a cloud and wearing a crown like some
kind of deity.
     Below the image, mangy dogs root through heaps of garbage rotting in
the sun and sewage trickles along the dirt road.
     "Aristide is the king of the poor. That is why we want him back," said
Rafael Pierre, a 28-year-old unemployed mechanic.
     Pierre was among thousands who marched Thursday in Haiti's capital to
demand the return of Aristide, a former slum priest who fled into exile on
Feb. 29, driven out by an armed revolt in the poor Caribbean nation and by
U.S. pressure to quit.
     The march, led by slum-dwellers who see Aristide as a messiah, erupted
in gunfire after police used tear gas to disperse it. Two people were
killed and six were wounded.
     Beating drums, chanting songs in Creole and waving portraits of the
diminutive Aristide, the marchers wound through overcrowded slums and
street markets where flies buzzed around pig heads, live poultry, mangoes
and bananas.
     "I believe in God and I believe God sent us Aristide," said Vilsaint
Gombo, who makes a living by selling beads.
     "They kidnapped our leader. The Americans first got rid of Saddam
Hussein and now they want to get rid of Aristide," shouted Bob Moliere, as
a man standing next to him with dreadlocks nodded and smoked marijuana.
     In these garbage strewn-neighborhoods, Aristide supporters firmly
believe Aristide was kidnapped by the United States, a charge Washington
calls preposterous.
     As the marchers jogged to the sound of Caribbean rhythms, more and
more slum-dwellers came out of flimsy wooden shacks to join in. When they
arrived at the National Palace, police lobbed tear gas.
     People fled and some broke windows and set fire to tires and garbage,
while militants brought out their guns and fired at police. Billows of
smoke rose into the cloudless sky and against the yellow pastel cathedral.
     A 13-year-old boy with red-shot eyes and no shirt threw a rock
viciously at the windshield of a car, a cigarette in one hand and blood
streaming down his arm from a cut. Schools have been closed since the
trouble began. More than 200 people have been killed in the month-long
violence.
     "Aristide is the king," the boy said as he melted into the
graffiti-scrawled slum.