PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Mourners clashed with U.N. troops after a popular priest’s funeral in the Haitian capital yesterday and a demonstrator was killed by gunfire that witnesses blamed on the peacekeepers.
Thousands of mourners gathered at the Port-au-Prince Cathedral and the surrounding area to pay their last respects to Roman Catholic priest Gerard Jean-Juste, a champion of Haiti’s poor who died of a stroke on May 27 in Miami. He was 62.
After the funeral, mourners and supporters of ousted ex-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, a former priest with whom Jean-Juste was a close ally, took to the streets in protest. Some accused the government of former Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue of causing Jean-Juste’s death by imprisoning him in 2005 on charges that later proved false. Jean-Juste became ill with leukemia while in prison.
Several witnesses said UN troops shot and killed a young male demonstrator as a convoy prepared to leave Port-au-Prince to bury Jean-Juste in his hometown of Cavaillon.
“I saw several UN troops firing gunshots and immediately after I saw the man laid on the ground,” Jean Mathieu, who said he was nearby, told Reuters.
“I did not see anybody else shooting. I am sure the UN soldiers are the ones who shot the demonstrator.”
A spokeswoman for the UN mission in Haiti, Sophie Boutaud De La Combe, confirmed that UN soldiers shot in the air to deter protesters who were throwing rocks at them, but she did not rule out that gunshots fired by UN troops could have hit the victim.
“We can confirm that our troops shot about five times in the air,” said De la Combe. “But only a ballistic test could finally determine whether the victim was killed by bullets fired by UN troops or not.”
The demonstrators took the victim’s body from the scene and planned to lay it down in front of the presidential palace, but a police ambulance intervened to take the body to the morgue.
Many demonstrators accused the former Latortue government of jailing Jean-Juste in 2005 to prevent him from running for president.
“Latortue and his government should be tried for Jean-Juste’s death,” said Maurice Legrand, a 37-year-old demonstrator. “When you jail somebody for political reason and you prevent him from getting medical care, you are a criminal.” Latortue, who now lives in Florida, could not be reached for comment.
