Three Aristide backers surrender in Haiti

By Stevenson Jacobs
The Associated Press

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The three politicians said police intended to arrest them on weapons charges. They were led out of Radio Caraibes in handcuffs last night after a judge entered with an arrest warrant to negotiate their surrender.

"They are kidnapping me. They have no reason to arrest me. It is an illegal arrest," Senate President Yvon Feuille said.

At least five men were killed Friday by gunmen outside the home of an anti-Aristide community leader in the seaside slum Village de Dieu, residents said yesterday.

Police also fired on a peaceful demonstration of Aristide supporters in the neighborhood of Bel Air on Friday, killing two young men, said Anne Sosin, a human-rights monitor.

Radio Metropole reported one civilian shot dead in a pro-Aristide demonstration Friday, while Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said police had killed two gang leaders Thursday in fighting in Cite Soleil.

The headless bodies of three police officers turned up Friday. The officers, along with a fourth policeman, were killed in clashes Thursday in the capital Port-au-Prince, police said.

"Aristide's partisans have begun an urban-guerrilla operation that they call Operation Baghdad," human-rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said yesterday. "The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in Haiti."

Aristide's Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Aristide's first government. The party is demanding an end to the "occupation" by foreign troops — referring to the U.S.-led force that followed Aristide's February ouster and U.N. peacekeepers who have taken over since June.

Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, has accused U.S. agents of kidnapping him when he was flown out of Haiti on a U.S.-chartered jet amid a bloody rebellion. But the U.S. government insists Aristide left of his own free will.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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