a830: Legislator's shooting touches off Haiti protests (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

    PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 18 (Reuters) - Demonstrators in Haiti's coastal
city of Gonaives set up flaming street barricades on Monday, demanding
police find the killers of a government legislator shot to death over the
weekend.
     The demonstrators threatened to disrupt traffic in and out of
Gonaives, Haiti's third-largest city, until the killers of Marc Andre
Durogene, Gonaives deputy in the Caribbean nation's lower house, were
caught.
     A member of the Lavalas Family party of Haitian President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Durogene was killed by two gunmen on Sunday while
sitting in a car in traffic, according to Haitian National Police commissar
Jeannot Francois.
     Investigators have taken Durogene's bodyguards into custody and were
questioning them about their failure to react to the shootings in
Port-au-Prince, according to Francois. Police said the shooting followed a
brief argument between the bodyguards and the gunmen.
     Durogene's shooting is just the latest instance of political violence
in Haiti, where a bitter two-year struggle continues between Aristide and
the opposition Convergence coalition over disputed legislative elections.
     The National Palace issued a communique late on Sunday describing the
shooting as "an assassination," while the opposition Democratic Convergence
condemned the attack as a murder reflecting political tensions in Haiti.
     "This killing is the consequence of the political and security
degradation of the country," said spokesman Micha Gaillard of Democratic
Convergence coalition.