23663: (pub) Chamberlain: 170 killed in recent Haiti violence, group says (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Oct 29 (Reuters) - At least 170 people have
been killed by gunfire in recent violence in Haiti, most of them from slum
strongholds of supporters of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a
human rights group said on Friday.
     Another 241 people have been wounded by gunshots in violence from
Sept. 1 to Oct. 26, the local branch of the New York-based National
Coalition for Haitian Rights said, citing records from the Port-au-Prince
general hospital.
     Several others have been killed over the past 48 hours, including four
people allegedly executed on Thursday near the slum of Bel-Air.
     Haitian authorities have launched an offensive aimed at ending a wave
of pro- and anti-Aristide violence in recent weeks. Aristide was pushed
into exile in February by a bloody rebellion and U.S. pressure.
     A spokesman for the NCHR, Viles Alizar, said many of the victims died
in police raids on pro-Aristide slums such as Bel-Air and Cite Soleil to
hunt criminal gang members.
     "The police have to act with professionalism when intervening to avoid
deaths of innocent people as it has been the case so far," Alizar said.
     The group called on the government to create an independent commission
to investigate the killings of 13 people in the Fort National slum on
Tuesday. Witnesses accused police of carrying out the killings. Police
officials denied the accusations.
     Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president, was
overthrown in a military coup during his first term in 1991 and disbanded
the military when he was restored to office three years later. He began a
second term in 2001 and was forced into exile in February.
     Haiti's police force includes many former soldiers who took part in
the rebellion, and Aristide supporters have accused them of killing and
illegally arresting Aristide partisans.