23359: (Chamberlain) Pro-Aristide demonstrations, 12 killed (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By STEVENSON JACOBS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 2 (AP) -- Supporters demanding the return of ousted
President Jean-Bertrand Aristide hurled stones and fired shots in the air
on Saturday, the third straight day of violent protests that have killed 12
people so far.
   At least five men were killed Friday by gunmen outside the home of an
anti-Aristide community leader in the seaside slum Village de Dieu,
residents said Saturday. Radio Metropole reported one civilian shot dead in
a pro-Aristide demonstration Friday, while Justice Minister Bernard Gousse
said police had killed two gang leaders Thursday in fighting in Cite
Soleil, a seaside slum teeming with Aristide loyalists.
   The headless bodies of three police officers turned up Friday. They,
along with a fourth policeman, were killed in clashes Thursday in the
capital Port-Au-Prince, police said.
   "Aristide's partisans have begun an urban guerrilla operation that they
call Operation Baghdad," human rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said
Saturday. "The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are
meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in Haiti."
   Aristide's Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of
commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Aristide's first government.
They are demanding an end to the "occupation" by foreign troops --
referring to the U.S.-led force that followed Aristide's February ouster
and U.N. peacekeepers who have taken over since June.
   Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, has accused U.S. agents of
kidnapping him when he was flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-chartered jet amid
a bloody rebellion. But the U.S. government insists Aristide left of his
own free will.
   In Village de Dieu -- which means Village of God -- several people
fearing for their lives abandoned homes after five men were killed there
Friday. The anti-Aristide activist who lived in the home targeted, Jean
Renald, escaped and went into hiding, residents said.
   "When the shooting started, everybody ran," said Andre Denache, 31, who
said he saw gunmen firing at the men standing outside Renald's home before
sunset.
   One of those killed, 23-year-old Mackenson Simeon, was ordered to lie
down and was shot twice in the head and neck, his sister Roselaine Simeon
said.
   "I don't know why they did it, because he didn't have any enemies," she
said, adding that the family had called police but noone came.
   The bodies were taken away in ambulances, leaving blood staining the
ground.
   "The attackers are gangsters, political opportunists who are taking
advantage of the three-day commemoration to terrorize the people, to
destabilize the country to make it easier to rob and rape," said Jean
Louis, a 30-year-old mechanic in the slum of crumbling cinderblock homes.
"Their power is fire power, not persuasion."
   Some Haitians are criticizing the failure of U.N. peacekeepers to
control the violence.
   "I wonder if the U.N. came here to organize a soccer game between Brazil
and Haiti or if they came to provide security," business leader Jacques
Khawly told Radio Metropole, referring to a match held in August to promote
peace.
   Most streets vendors in the capital stayed home Saturday as Aristide
supporters took to the streets. Masked gunmen fired into the air before
dawn in the traditionally pro-Aristide neighborhood of Bel Air, radio
station Signal FM reported.
   "There is shooting. They are throwing rocks. People can't walk on the
street," said Bonhonne Esperance, 42, an unemployed security guard in the
area.
   There was more gunfire Saturday in the slum of La Saline, where police
found the headless bodies of the three officers a day earlier. Police came
under heavy gunfire when they retrieved the bodies, police spokeswoman
Jesse Coicou told Radio Metropole. Some people in the area stoned cars,
residents said.
   In downtown Port-au-Prince, a team of Haitian police patrolled by car,
training their rifles down busy side streets.
   Tensions have exploded in Haiti as the country struggles to recover from
the catastrophic floods of Tropical Storm Jeanne two weeks ago. The storm
killed more than 1,550 and left some 900 missing, most presumed dead. In in
the northwestern city of Gonaives, the hardest hit by the storm, 200,000 of
the city's 250,000 residents are homeless.
   The storm's aftermath has tied up some 750 of the 3,000 U.N.
peacekeeping troops in Haiti.
   The U.S.-backed interim government that replaced Aristide has proved
ineffectual in responding to the urgent needs in Gonaives, where hungry
residents have repeatedly mobbed relief trucks and gangsters have stolen
aid.
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   Associated Press reporters Amy Bracken in Gonaives and Michael Norton in
San Juan, Puerto Rico, contributed to this report.