23645: (pub) Chamberlain: Police said to execute 10 (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHELLE FAUL

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Oct 27 (AP) -- Police raided a slum building in Haiti's
capital and executed at least 10 people, most students, neighbors told a
human rights lawyer Wednesday, the second day of an ineffective strike
called by loyalists who want the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide. Police denied the report.
   Lawyer Judy Delacruz said she saw trails of blood where neighbors told
her police had dragged the bodies of those killed along an alley behind
Ruelle Estime in the Fort National neighborhood of Port-au-Prince.
   Haiti's interim government has said police would act to end weeks of
violence that has killed at least 61 people -- not including those
reportedly killed on Tuesday. It started Sept. 30, when police reportedly
fired on protesters demanding Aristide's return from exile in South Africa,
killing two. The beheaded bodies of three police officers were found the
following day.
   Residents "said police killed 10 people, and some say 13, including a
young school girl of 13 years old," Delacruz told The Associated Press.
   She said residents told her police drove into the neighborhood around
4:30 p.m. Tuesday in five vehicles and drove down an alley behind a
building, in which they shot and killed the people. Most of the purported
victims were students, residents said.
   The police director in charge of western Haiti, Renan Etienne, said the
police had not performed any operations on Tuesday.
   Police spokeswoman Gesse Coicou said the only death recorded Tuesday was
of an officer shot and killed in Carrefour, a different part of
Port-au-Prince. She said police had conducted searches in Carrefour after
the shooting, but that "we have no reports of any death yesterday as a
result of police action."
   Neighbors said the bodies in Fort National were taken away in an
ambulance, she said. An Associated Press reporter visited the main morgue,
but found no bodies. Delacruz said she also had gone and found no bodies.
   Delacruz said the people she spoke to complained they felt "targeted
because they live in a poor neighborhood, and they said anyone who does is
associated with Aristide."
   Wednesday was the second day of a three-day strike called by Aristide
loyalists. But children went to school, businesses opened and some vendors
were on the street. Isolated gunshots were reported.
   "I have to feed my children," said one vendor, who said she had been
threatened by Aristide supporters because she was working. She refused to
give her name or political allegiance.
   A similar strike call Sept. 30 paralyzed Port-au-Prince for nearly two
weeks, after businesses were looted and cars torched. A tense calm returned
to the city this week, when businesses and schools reopened.
   Aristide, accused of corruption, fled on Feb. 29 after a three-week
rebellion. Now in South Africa, Aristide has accused the United States of
orchestrating his ouster and insists he remains Haiti's democratically
elected leader. The United States denies his charges.