Journalist among 6 dead in Haiti

AT least six people, including a Spanish television journalist, were killed during protests in Haiti today, medical sources and witnesses said.

Spanish television sources named the journalist as Ricardo Ortega, who worked for Antena 3.

He was shot in the chest close to the presidential palace in Port-au-Prince while reporting on the demonstration, according to Miami Herald photographer Peter Andrew Bosch.

Two other journalists, including one from the United States, were said to be among the wounded.

Thanks, yonif. Perhaps the Admin Mods could change the title, prevent a dup post of this WT - AP version:
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Mar 7, 5:20 PM EST

Shots Fired at Haiti Protesters Kill 5

By IAN JAMES and PAISLEY DODDS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) -- Gunshots erupted Sunday at a protest to demand that ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide be tried for corruption and fomenting violence. At least four demonstrators and a foreign journalist were killed.

Witnesses blamed Aristide militants, but that could not immediately be confirmed. The shooting occured as crowds gathered in front of the presidential National Palace.

Cameraman Ricardo Ortega of Spain's Antena 3 television network was shot in the stomach and died at Port-au-Prince's private Canape Vert Hospital.

Blood covered the floor there as the emergency room quickly filled with more than 30 injured people.

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

Witnesses said they saw Aristide supporters shooting at the crowd in front of the National Palace, and they complained that peacekeepers did nothing to prevent the violence.

"The peacekeepers were nowhere near where the shooting was," said Almil Costel, 31, who was shot twice in the left shoulder.

French commander Col. Daniel Leplatois defended the peacekeepers. "We're not able to secure the lives of all of the demonstrators," he said.

After the shooting, a truck with speakers bolted to its frame paraded around the palace, blasting music. One man speaking over a truck loudspeaker shouted at the U.S. Marines: "People are dying every day in this country. You have to do something about it."

Haitian police and U.S. and French troops who had been guarding the march route began patrolling the area of the shooting to bring it back under control.

Aristide supporters had planned a joint demonstration Sunday but said they were offered no protection by the peacekeepers and were afraid of reprisal attacks from anti-Aristide activists. Their protest was rescheduled for Monday, though organizers said they were trying to determine how much security they could depend on.

"The Americans are only here to protect those who helped oust Aristide," said Ednar Ducoste, 23, an Aristide supporter. "If we had guns, we would be fighting against them right now."

Aristide released a statement Sunday through government officials in the Central African Republic, where he is in exile, saying he was "well-looked after" by his hosts and will personally address reporters at an unspecified time. Aristide has said the United States forced him from power, something U.S. officials deny.

Peacekeepers have removed barricades in central neighborhoods but have avoided Aristide strongholds, like La Saline and Cite Soleil.

"They come here with their missiles, and they do nothing for us," said Leo Bertrand, 27. "They kidnapped our president, and now they're here to hold us down."

Earlier during Sunday's march in Port-au-Prince, demonstrators tore down a billboard featuring Aristide's face and the slogan: "Haiti is the mother of freedom," then carried it to the palace and set it on fire. Military helicopters circled overhead as black smoke billowed from the front gate.

Rebel leader Guy Philippe was hoisted onto supporters' shoulders as they chanted "Guy Philippe - hero! Aristide - zero!"

Philippe, a former Aristide police chief accused of coup-plotting, reiterated Sunday that he had no political aspirations. On Wednesday, he said his fighters would lay down their arms. There were no weapons in sight Sunday.

There were also cheers for Louis-Jodel Chamblain, an ex-soldier convicted in the killings of Aristide supporters. Like film stars, both Chamblain and Philippe were surrounded by autograph-seekers.

Rebels have refused to give up their weapons, despite Philippe's pledge. Marines have faced hostility - so far, only shouted insults - from armed Aristide militants furious over their leader's ouster and what they call "an occupation army."

Sunday's anti-Aristide crowd also took up a cry of "Help, yes. Occupation, no!"

It swelled quickly to thousands who ran and danced through the city, chanting, "Try Aristide! Jail Aristide!"

Businessman Liastaud Michel, 56, called the event "a victory march ... to celebrate. We want things to change."

A recently appointed seven-member "Council of Sages" met for a third day Sunday in the capital to choose a new prime minister. Officials said they hoped to have a decision by Tuesday.

One possibility is Lt. Gen. Herard Abraham, probably the only Haitian army officer to voluntarily surrender power to a civilian. Abraham succeeded ousted Gen. Prosper Avril in 1990 and immediately handed power to Haiti's Supreme Court justice. That allowed the transition that led to Haiti's first free elections in December 1990, which Aristide won in a landslide.

Another choice is Smarck Michel, a businessman who was Aristide's prime minister in 1994-1995 but resigned over differences in economic policy.

The U.S. Marine presence is the third American military intervention in Haiti, which has suffered under civilian and military dictators since a slave rebellion won independence from France in 1804.

The United States sent troops in 1915 who occupied the country for 25 years. In 1994, 20,000 troops came to end a brutal military dictatorship, halt an exodus of boat people to Florida and restore Aristide, who had been ousted in 1991.

Aristide was a wildly popular slum priest when he became Haiti's first freely elected leader in 1990. But his popularity diminished after he was re-elected in 2000. Haitians said he failed to improve their lives, condoned corruption and used police and armed supporters to attack his political opponents.

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Associated Press writer Joseph B. Frazier contributed to this report from Cap-Haitien.

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HAITI?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME

Sigh. Aristide is a leftist, so the int'l leftist terrorist-pirate-thug press-pol-pundit allies unite in defense of the indefensible, once again (poverty is to blame for all ills, of course...ignore the Dominican Republic - the larger, better half of the island which prospered under a non-leftist leader).

Mar 7, 2:09 PM EST

U.S. Coast Guard Boosts Patrols Off Haiti

By MICHAEL SMITH
Associated Press Writer

ABOARD THE U.S. COAST GUARD CUTTER DILIGENCE (AP) -- Dr. Daniel Garcia says it's the hardest job in his 6 1/2-year career with the U.S. Coast Guard: hunting down Haitians on homemade boats and returning them to the turmoil embroiling their homeland.

The U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Diligence was among a dozen patrolling waters off Haiti on Sunday, a fleet increased from the usual two vessels to prevent a feared exodus.

Sea and air patrols have been stepped up since President Bush on Feb. 25 urged Haitians to "stay home" and warned anyone who did not would be repatriated.

That policy, announced as the United States was preparing to evacuate Americans from a dangerously volatile situation, has drawn criticism from human rights groups and some U.S. legislators. Critics say the United States is obligated by international law to grant asylum to people fleeing conflict zones.

On Feb. 27, Garcia's cutter encountered a 50-foot homemade wooden boat carrying 233 Haitians and brought them aboard.

Garcia spent four hours giving each one a physical checkup. He had to rely on a handful of English and Spanish speakers among the bedraggled boat people to translate the Haitians' native Creole.

He watched as they were dropped at the dock at Haiti's capital of Port-au-Prince.

"Since my six-and-a-half years in the Coast Guard, this has been the most trying time," Garcia said, especially "seeing what they have to go back to."

"I don't blame them. I'd leave too," he told The Associated Press.

Officers said some of the boat people got unruly when they realized they were being returned to Haiti. A few had to be shackled because they didn't want to go back.

The group was among more than 904 boat people, including babies, to be repatriated by the Coast Guard since Bush stepped up the policy.

Many of the Haitians in February were left on the dock on the southern outskirts of the capital as militant Aristide loyalists were setting up flaming barricades and robbing people of cars and money.

The boat people had only bundles with blankets, clothing and meals of beans and rice that the Coast Guard gave them.

Most said they had left to escape Haiti's grinding poverty, not because of political motivations or fear of being swept up in the rebellion.

U.S. Marines had to guard the frightened returnees and Haitian Coast Guard officers trained their rifles on the taunting crowd to force a passage through for the refugees.

A reporter there watched them walking uncertainly, most barefoot, in the direction of the tumultuous capital - a city most had never visited many miles from northern hometowns cut off by the rebellion.

On Feb. 29, Aristide fled the country, under pressure from rebels advancing on the capital and U.S. and French calls for him to bow out.

In recent days, the cutters haven't come across any boats with migrant hopefuls. But they worry that could change.

In the early 1990s, some 65,000 Haitians were intercepted at sea as they tried to escape the Caribbean nation's brutal dictatorship and reach U.S. shores. With no leadership and much of the nation divided between Aristide opponents and supporters, many may opt to flee again.

It's not known how many die attempting to reach Florida in rickety overcrowded sloops. Haitian boat people rarely make the news unless dozens drown in a capsized boat.

On another cutter, the Escanaba, crew members scanned the ocean late Saturday in search of migrant boats. The cutter hadn't intercepted a Haitian boat since December, when 361 Haitians were traveling aboard a 54-foot sailboat.

It took the crew six hours to bring them all aboard. The wooden boat was littered with human waste. The cutter did not have enough blankets and clothes on board to accommodate the Haitians, so crew members gave up some of their own.

One crew member, a Haitian-American, helped translate for the migrants along with another translator who was on board. Some told him to let them go, that he should understand their situation since he was one of them.

But the crew member, Petty Officer Fritzgerald Saintime, said he didn't feel too guilty about returning the Haitians.

"There's no way they were going to make it" to Miami, Saintime said. "We definitely saved their lives."

http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/H/HUNTING_HAITIANS?SITE=DCTMS&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Thanks to our Coast Guard!

Police Seek Gunmen Who Killed 5 in Haiti
1 hour, 59 minutes ago

By PAISLEY DODDS and IAN JAMES, Associated Press Writers

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti - U.S. Marines are investigating the attack on thousands celebrating the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that killed at least five people and led Marines to return fire in the first armed action of their mission to Haiti.

A few doctors without enough medication or staff struggled Monday to treat dozens of injured from Sunday's protest, despite the dramatic arrival of a French Air Force helicopter that landed on a major road to deliver emergency supplies to Port-au-Prince's main private hospital.

Sunday's was the worst attack since Aristide fled Feb. 29 and involved the first gunfire by U.S. forces sent a week ago to stabilize Haiti.

Among the five people killed were Spanish television correspondent Ricardo Ortega. Dozens were injured, including South Florida photographer Michael Laughlin, 37.

What protesters called a "victory march" began with a couple hundred people in Port-au-Prince's Petionville suburb, with Haitian police in the lead along with a convoy of U.S. Marines in five Humvees mounted with machine guns. Two truckloads of French legionnaires were in the tail.

It was a test of Haiti's shaky democracy in the aftershock of Aristide's flight — prompted in part by a monthlong popular rebellion — and of newly arrived U.S. and French peacekeepers.

Aristide militants who have attacked protesting opponents in the past said they too would march Sunday to demand the return of the exiled leader who says he was forced from power by the United States.

A confrontation seemed inevitable.

"Try Aristide! Jail Aristide!" protesters yelled, demanding he stand trial for alleged corruption and killings committed by his militant supporters.

As the number of protesters swelled to thousands, the peacekeepers got hemmed in.

When marchers converged on the central Champs de Mars plaza, gunfire erupted. Many witnesses said they saw Aristide militants start the shooting.

U.S. Maj. Richard Crusan said three Marines fired in the direction of the attack.

"We are unaware that any action was taken to other reports of shooting. We are still reviewing that information," he said.

Many of Sunday's victims were shot with high-velocity bullets from weapons like M-16s and M-14s, orthopedic surgeon Ronald Georges said.

Wailing victims flooded the Canape Vert hospital where he works, and blood covered the floors of the two operating rooms.

When the French helicopter landed the two men delivering emergency supplies were stopped at the hospital's locked gates.

Two weeks ago, when the hospital was treating opposition protesters attacked by Aristide militants after another demonstration, Aristide loyalists had stormed the hospital, outraging human rights activists.

Late Sunday afternoon, the deputy chief of mission of the U.S. Embassy, Luis Moreno, rushed there with several armed U.S. troops.

They barged in and Moreno told The Associated Press they were there to help an American citizen in life-threatening condition — presumably the photographer who's condition had stabilized.

Officials of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross were outraged. "International law stipulates that weapons are not allowed in hospitals," ICRC delegate Jean-Jacques Fresard told the AP.

Victims of the violence at the protest complained that peacekeepers did nothing.

"The peacekeepers were nowhere near where the shooting was," said Almil Costel, 31, who was shot twice in the left shoulder.

French commander Col. Daniel Leplatois defended the peacekeepers. "We're not able to secure the lives of all of the demonstrators," he said.

After the shooting, a truck with speakers paraded around the National Palace, blasting music. The one man shouted over its loudspeaker at the Marines: "People are dying every day in this country. You have to do something about it."

Aristide supporters said they canceled their march because peacekeepers had not promised the same level of security they gave their opponents. A pro-Aristide rally was instead planned for Monday.

"The Americans are only here to protect those who helped oust Aristide," said Ednar Ducoste, 23. "If we had guns, we would be fighting against them right now."

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune condemned the killings. He also defended the Marines' return of fire, saying they abided by "rules of engagement (that) permit that they use proportional force."

Neptune — an Aristide appointee whom protesters also demanded should go on trial — ordered police to search for perpetrators and "start disarming all who carry illegal weapons."

That's a tall challenge that also confronts the peacekeepers.

Chief rebel leader Guy Philippe, who was hoisted on the shoulders of protesters Sunday and hailed as a hero, promised to disarm last week. But his fighters say they will surrender their arms only after Aristide's militants.

Opposition leaders have denied Aristide's charges that they supported the rebellion but appear sympathetic to the aim of rebel leaders — including two convicted assassins — to reconstitute the Haitian army that fomented 32 coups in 200 years.

Aristide was a wildly popular slum priest when he became Haiti's first freely elected leader in 1990. But he lost support after he was re-elected in 2000. Haitians said he failed to improve their lives, condoned corruption and used police and armed supporters to attack his political opponents.
___

Associated Press writer Peter Prengaman contributed to this report from Port-au-Prince.

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