Supporters of Haiti's ousted president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, threw stones and fired guns on streets littered with debris and overturned cars on Saturday in a third day of violent protests demanding Mr. Aristide's return. At least seven people have been killed in the violence so far, including three police officers whose headless bodies were found Friday. A fourth police officer was also shot and killed on the first day of fighting.
"Aristide's partisans have begun an urban guerrilla operation that they call Operation Baghdad," Jean-Claude Bajeux, a rights activist, said Saturday. "The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of U.S. policy in Haiti." Tensions have exploded in Haiti as the country struggles to recover from catastrophic floods caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne two weeks ago. The storm killed more than 1,550 people and left some 900 missing, most presumed dead. It also left an estimated 300,000 homeless, some 200,000 of them in the northwestern city of Gonaïves. The storm's aftermath has tied up about 750 of the 3,000 United Nations peacekeeping troops in Haiti. Against that backdrop, Mr. Aristide's Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Mr. Aristide's first government. They also demanded an end to "the occupation" and "the invasion" by foreign troops - referring to the American-led force that came in after Mr. Aristide's ouster by a rebellion in February and the United Nations peacekeepers who have taken over since June. |