Aristide supporters open fire: 6 killed

People who were participating in an anti-Aristide march near the Presidential Palace sit or lie on the pavement as US Marines point their weapons in the direction where shots are being fired Sunday in Port-au-Prince. At least six persons were shot dead and 13 were wounded when supporters of Haiti's former president, Jean Bertrand Aristide, opened fire on protesters marching to the presidential palace, according to witnesses and local radio reports.. PHOTO: AFP

Eyewitnesses said gunmen linked to Aristide's Lavalas movement fired from rooftops and burst into the capital's main square in a pickup truck, a jeep and on foot, shooting with automatic weapons into a festive crowd celebrating the fall of the president.

"A whole group from Lavalas came down the Champs de Mars firing in every direction," said Ingrid Arnesen, a CNN producer who witnessed the attack. "Heavy machine gun fire."

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It was the boldest attack since Aristide, facing a bloody revolt and international pressure, fled the impoverished Caribbean nation of 8 million last Sunday. His supporters had accused rebel troops of conducting reprisal raids in the capital's slums, home to thousands of Aristide supporters.

Hospital officials said the dead included Spaniard Ricardo Ortega, a correspondent for the Antena 3 Spanish television station. The wounded included two Haiti police officers and American journalist Michael Laughlin of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel newspaper, who was shot in face and shoulder.

US Marines leading an international peace mission roared to the scene in machine gun-mounted Humvees as panicked demonstrators ran for cover and military helicopters hovered over the palace.

"It was a massacre," said Haitian National Police chief Leonce Charles, who was appointed to the job last week.

Prime Minister Yvon Neptune urged police to pursue the "assassins" no matter what side of Haiti's political divide they came from and said police and foreign troops should start disarming people with illegal weapons.