PORT-AU-PRINCE, (Reuters) – Gunmen clashed with police in a running street battle in a slum district of Haiti’s capital yesterday, fueling fears of a resurgence of the election-related violence that hit the poor Caribbean nation last month.
At least one person was killed and several were arrested after protesters used burning tires to erect barricades across streets in Martissant, on the city’s south side, Port-au-Prince Police Commissioner Michaelange Gedeon told Reuters.
“They had set up barricades and fired off rounds of gunshots when we arrived. They started shooting at us. One of them was killed in a shootout with the police,” Gedeon said.
He said it was not immediately clear what triggered the protest. But it came amid widespread concerns that an experts’ report from the Organization of American States (OAS), which challenges the official results of Haiti’s Nov. 28 national elections, could spur fresh outbreaks of unrest.
Burning barricades went up in at least two other areas of Port-au-Prince after the incident in Martissant, and there were reports linking the protests to armed supporters of Jude Celestin, Haitian President Rene Preval’s handpicked successor.
The OAS report recommends that Celestin be eliminated from a second-round run-off election because of numerous problems with preliminary results from the poll.
“The protesters, partisans of Celestin, said they were demonstrating against the OAS,” said Michel Sylvain, who watched as young men, some of them brandishing handguns, used gasoline to torch tires early on Friday along a road linking Port-au-Prince to the international airport.
He said he watched as one of them spray-painted the words “Jude Celestin ou Lamo,” Haitian Creole for “Jude Celestin or Death” on a wall along the airport road.
The incidents added to tensions and uncertainty two days after Haiti marked the first anniversary of the devastating Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake in the volatile Caribbean country.
