Haiti

Gunmen kill six at rally in Haiti; Marines fire back

PORT-AU-PRINCE - Gunman opened fire Sunday on thousands celebrating the week-old departure of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, killing at least five demonstrators and a foreign journalist in front of the presidential National Palace.

U.S. Marines returned fire in the direction of the gunshots, Marine Maj. Richard Crusan told the Associated Press. It was the first known armed action by U.S. forces sent to stabilize the country.

No Marines were injured.

During the attack, Ricardo Ortega, a New York correspondent for the Spanish television station Antena 3, was shot in the stomach and died at the hospital.

Among the 32 injured was Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel photographer Michael Laughlin, 37. He was shot in the shoulder and face but was in stable condition.

The latest outbreak of violence is further evidence that international efforts to stabilize the country still face an uphill task. Though most top leaders of the pro-Aristide street gangs, known as the chimeres, have fled the country or gone into hiding, they still have their guns and continue to threaten violence.

The attack also came only hours after Aristide delivered a radio message to his supporters via a telephone interview with a U.S.-based journalist. "In overthrowing me, they have uprooted the trunk of the liberty," he said. "It will grow back because its roots are many and deep," he said. While he spoke out against further violence, some analysts say his language was ambiguous.

Claiming that he had been kidnapped in a coup d'etat, Aristide also alleged that his resignation letter had been forged. "I can clearly say that it was terrorism disguised as diplomacy," he said.

U.S. and Haitian officials who accompanied Aristide as he left his private residence in the early hours of Feb. 29, have insisted that he left voluntarily. During Sunday's gun battle, panicked demonstrators scattered or took cover. One man with a stomach wound was carried inside the palace to seek medical attention. Three policemen were also shot. After visiting the injured, Haiti's newly installed police chief, Leonce Charles, denounced the attack as a massacre.

The demonstration Sunday began peacefully several hours earlier as tens of thousands of Haitians, rich and poor, congregated from all over the city, running, dancing and singing. They chanted slogans calling for Aristide to be arrested and put on trial, along with his close associates and ministers, some of whom remain in the country, and, nominally at least, still form part of the government.

"Justice for those who died," they chanted. "No to golden exile for criminals," read one placard.

Among the crowd were leaders of Haiti's anti-Aristide coalition, as well as members of the rebel army, which launched a successful revolt in the north of the country early last month. Rebel leader Guy Philippe rode atop a car and saluted the crowd.

U.S. Marines and French gendarmes accompanied Haitian civilian police providing protection for the marchers. "We want the chimeres to know that they don't control the streets any more," said Laennec Hurbon, a sociologist.

But as the crowd neared a row of street vendors on the edge of a fiercely pro-Aristide neighborhood, the chimeres were waiting for them. In interviews before the march pro-Aristide gang leaders threatened to disrupt the demonstration, warning that extreme violence would be used. "There are no rules in war," said a man who identified himself as "Gardy."

- Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.

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