Demonstration against Haiti's Aristide
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- A mourning procession for a high-school student turned into a demonstration against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide on Thursday, with protesters blaming Aristide supporters for the student's death after an anti-government march this month.
"Arrest Aristide! We're tired of dead bodies!" about 100 protesters shouted as they accompanied a hearse from a Roman Catholic church to the capital's municipal cemetery.
Police accompanied the procession, which ended without incident.
The student, Emmanuel Colastin, 15, died January 18 when gunmen opened fire from a car and hit him as he was walking on a boulevard after an anti-government protest march that had drawn thousands. Colastin had not participated in the demonstration, but the opposition Democratic Platform accused "the bandits of the Aristide regime" of having killed him.
Haiti has been in turmoil since Aristide's Lavalas Family party swept 2000 legislative elections that observers said were flawed. In the past four months of protest, at least 50 people have been killed.
Aristide partisan Lionel Victor, 29, was killed Wednesday after a tear gas canister shot by police struck him in the back. He was among a group of Aristide supporters countering an anti-government demonstration held by university students outside the U.S. Consulate.
Believing Victor had been an anti-government demonstrator, students crowded into the waiting room of a hospital, sobbing and shouting anti-government slogans.
Later, they built a flaming tire barricade outside the Canape Vert hospital. Riot police stormed the hospital and detained at least 15 people. Eleven were later released. One police officer was injured by a rock.
Saying they want to prevent fresh outbreaks of violence, police on Tuesday ordered demonstrations in the capital be held in a seaside square, kilometers (miles) away from the National Palace.
Caribbean Community leaders have been trying to help Haiti out of its three-year political impasse, meeting in the Bahamas last week with Haitian opposition members and with Aristide in Haiti on Sunday.
Aristide was planning to meet regional leaders Saturday in Jamaica, the regional bloc's Assistant-Secretary General Colin Granderson told The Associated Press on Thursday.
The opposition said it would not hold talks with the government or participate in new elections unless Aristide resigns. Aristide has said he plans to serve out his term, which ends in 2006.
Copyright 2004 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
