24089: (pub) Chamberlain: Haiti-Adviser Shot (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By AMY BRACKEN

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Jan 16 (AP) -- The interim prime minister's chief
adviser was shot and wounded Sunday during a failed carjacking attempt in
Haiti's capital, police said.
   Raymond Lafontant was shot once in the stomach in a Port-au-Prince
neighborhood when a small group of men trying to steal his car could not
get it started, government spokesman Mike Joseph said.
   Lafontant, chief of staff in the office of U.S.-backed interim Prime
Minister Gerard Latortue, was in stable condition at a hospital in the
capital, Joseph said. It did not appear Lafontant had been targeted because
the gunmen had not killed him, he said.
   Lafontant was driving his new sport utility vehicle to his mother's home
when two or three men ordered him out, Joseph said. Lafontant gave them the
keys but the attackers could not start the SUV, so they fired three shots
at him, he said, adding he didn't know why the vehicle wouldn't start.
Lafontant was alone at the time of the attack.
   Senior government officials have the option of having a security detail
assigned to them but Lafontant chose not to have bodyguards, Joseph said.
No arrests had been made, national police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou said.
   Lafontant had a car stolen from him last summer, but he was not attacked
in that incident, authorities said.
   Despite the presence of 7,400 U.N. peacekeepers in Haiti, carjackings
and shootings are common in Port-au-Prince, including Pouplard Avenue,
where Lafontant was attacked. Armed men have burned more than 30 vehicles
in the area since September, private Radio Metropole reported.
   The Western Hemisphere's poorest country also has seen a rash of
political killings since Sept. 30, when loyalists of ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide intensified protests to demand his return from exile
in South Africa.