#3241: Haitian Pol Shot, Hacked to Death (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From:nozier@tradewind.net

Thursday April 13 4:38 PM ET 
 Haitian Pol Shot, Hacked to Death
 By MICHAEL NORTON, Associated Press Writer 

 PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Attackers shot and hacked to death a local
political candidate in Haiti, then slashed his daughter with a machete,
his party's spokesman said Thursday. The slaying of rural assembly
candidate Merilus Deus on Monday night was the latest of at least 10
killings amid tension over long-delayed elections in the
 Caribbean country. Deus was a candidate in Savanette, a town of about
6,000 people some 35 miles northeast of Port-au-Prince. Unidentified
assailants killed him in his home, said Ernst Colon, spokesman for the
Christian Movement for a New Haiti. Deus' daughter, Michou, was
hospitalized in critical  condition. ``On the eve of elections, we
wonder whether they   can be held under the current government,'' Colon
 said. After weeks of street violence, the provisional electoral council
said Tuesday that Haiti's legislative and local elections will be held
May 21. The elections have been postponed three times since November,
and opposition politicians have accused President Rene Preval of trying
to derail the voting.
 ``Elections aren't in the forefront of our minds now. We're worried
about the future of the country,'' said Sauveur Pierre-Etienne,
spokesman for the Struggling People's Organization. The organization had
a majority in Parliament when Preval shut it down in January 1999 and
called for new elections.