Marines Shot Haiti Protest Gunman

U.S. Marines shot and killed one of the gunmen who fired during a weekend demonstration by Haitians celebrating the ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a spokesman said Monday.

Gunfire broke out at the anti-Aristide march Sunday, prompting the Marines to return fire in the first armed action of their week-old mission to stabilize Haiti.

In all, five people were killed and more than 30 injured in the worst bloodshed since Aristide fled Haiti on Feb. 29 and U.S. and French peacekeepers arrived.

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

Col. Charles Gurganus told a news conference that the gunman was trying to attack Marines when he was killed Sunday.

Gurganus said the shooting occurred near one corner of the presidential National Palace when a Marine platoon observed two gunmen. One was killed, while the troops did not know what happened to the other, he said.

Asked how he knew the man killed was a gunman, Gurganus said: "He had a gun, and he was shooting at Marines. That's what I call a gunman."

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.

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.

In a telephone conversation aired Monday on French radio, Aristide called on countrymen to peacefully resist the "unacceptable occupation" of Haiti and said he remains the nation's president. Aristide flew into exile March 1 in the Central African Republic.

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.

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.

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, saying they needed to help an American citizen, presumably the photographer.

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.

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."

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.

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."

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.

"The conflict in Haiti is far more complicated than it was a decade ago when U.S. marines were sent to restore Aristide to power," said CBS News foreign affairs analyst Pamela Falk. "There are deep-set divisions in Haiti which now may require a longer-term commitment of U.S. money and military troops."

Opposition leaders have denied Aristide's charges that they supported the rebellion but appear sympathetic to the aim of rebel leaders 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.

Aristide's defenders say his government, while flawed, was crippled by a U.S.-led block of international development aid.

The aid was ostensibly held up by a dispute over the 2000 elections, in which several pro-Aristide lawmakers were elected by a controversial vote-counting formula. Aristide's backers say the real reason for the aid's delay was that Aristide's economic policies angered Washington.

Aristide agreed to be flown out of Haiti on Feb. 29 after learning the United States would not protect him. U.S. officials vehemently deny Aristide's claim that they forced him to resign. But there's little question they wanted him to go.