24224: (news) Chamberlain: Four policemen killed at start of Haiti carnival (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Joseph Guyler Delva

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Gunmen attacked a police
patrol and killed four policemen in the Haitian capital and at least four
other people were shot dead as the country's three-day carnival celebration
began, police and witnesses said on Monday.
     The killings highlighted continuing instability nearly a year after
ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled into exile, pushed out by an armed
revolt and U.S. pressure. More than 240 people have died in political and
gang violence since early September.
     The four officers, who had been assigned to protect a music band as it
headed to join the main downtown parade, were killed in the residential
Clercine neighborhood late on Sunday, not far from a base for U.N.
peacekeepers, said police chief Leon Charles on Monday.
     Two other police officers were wounded, he said.
     A police spokeswoman, Jessie Coicou, said the attackers had been
identified as former members of the military, which was disbanded a decade
ago. Other police sources said the attackers wore army uniforms and were
riding a green pick-up truck.
     The leader of the former military, Remissainthe Ravix, said in a
statement on a local radio station that no former soldiers were involved.
     Former troops, now a rag-tag rebel force that pushed out Aristide,
still hold sway in parts of the country of 8 million people.
     At least four other people were shot dead late on Sunday or early on
Monday. Witnesses saw the bodies of three men and a woman lying on the
street in downtown Port-au-Prince on Monday morning. It was not known who
shot them or why.
     In other incidents, shots were fired near several points of the
carnival route late on Sunday, panicking crowds taking part in Haiti's big
annual party, a colorful festival of masks and drums in the impoverished
Caribbean country.
     The shooting appeared to be mostly aimed at scaring people since it
was not necessarily directed at the crowd, said Coicou, the police
spokeswoman. Hospital sources said at least 10 people were wounded.
     Many of the shots came from Bel-Air, a stronghold of Aristide
supporters where there is still anger at his ouster. Several armed groups
from pro-Aristide slums had threatened to disturb carnival festivities.
     Hundreds of Haitian policemen and about 600 Brazilian peacekeepers
were deployed in the capital to protect people going to the pre-Lenten
party that ends on Mardi Gras, U.N. mission spokesman Damian Onzes-Cardona
told Reuters on Monday.
     The Brazilian-led U.N. peacekeeping force numbers about 6,000 soldiers
and 1,400 police nationwide.
     Crowds seemed smaller than usual for the start of carnival. It was not
clear whether this was because people were afraid, or protesting.
     Some Aristide supporters said they were not in the mood for carnival,
complaining many of their relatives and friends were being jailed
arbitrarily -- which the interim government of Prime Minister Gerard
Latortue has repeatedly denied.