Gunfire, protests intensify in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — Heavy gunfire erupted Friday when police streamed into a slum stronghold of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide as his loyalists blocked streets with flaming debris to mark the 10th anniversary of Aristide's return from his first exile.

Tensions surged in the capital, where two weeks of shootouts and beheadings have killed at least 48 people. Former Haitian soldiers, who hold sway over much of the countryside, are threatening to deploy into Port-au-Prince over the objections of the interim government, which is backed by an overextended and beleaguered U.N. peacekeeping force.

The U.S. State Department urged all nonessential embassy personnel and family members to leave the country. The department also upgraded its travel warning for Haiti, saying moving in and outside the capital can be hazardous because police are ineffective and peacekeepers are not fully deployed.

The violence is crippling a massive humanitarian mission to help some 200,000 homeless survivors of Tropical Storm Jeanne in northwestern Gonaives, where several relief agencies have suspended operations, Oxfam spokeswoman Maite Alvarez told The Associated Press on Friday.

It was unclear who was doing the shooting Friday as police in cars and on foot entered the barricaded Bel Air slum, which overlooks the presidential National Palace. A plume of acrid smoke rose as people set a bonfire of tires and trash.

A few hundred supporters of Aristide's Lavalas Family Party held a peaceful demonstration there earlier, Haiti's Radio Plus reported, broadcasting chants of "Only Lavalas, no matter what happens!"

The crackle of automatic gunfire also exploded in two other neighborhoods.

Aristide's backers are demanding his return from exile as they mark his restoration to power in 1994 through the intervention of 20,000 U.S. troops who ended three years of brutal military rule. Aristide fled again this past Feb. 29 as former soldiers leading a bloody rebellion neared Port-au-Prince.

The ex-soldiers have not been disarmed since U.S. Marines flew in the same day Aristide fled, then handed over in June to U.N. peacekeepers.

Haiti's latest crisis erupted when Aristide supporters demonstrated Sept. 30 to demand his return from exile in South Africa and an end to "the occupation" by foreign troops. Police reportedly shot and killed two protesters, and the next day three police were found beheaded.

Police spokeswoman Gessy Coicou told a news conference Friday that 21 police officers have been killed and 23 wounded in the line of duty since March. The Haitian Press Network said 10 officers were killed in the past two weeks, five of them beheaded.

Haiti's ex-soldiers and business leaders have accused U.N. peacekeepers of being ineffective.