Aristide supporters behead police victims in street clashes

MACHETE-WIELDING supporters of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide are turning their wrath on Haiti’s demoralized police force, beheading some of their victims in a campaign imitative of the insurgency in Iraq.

Seven of at least 18 people killed in the turmoil in Port-au-Prince have been police officers, judicial police chief Michael Lucius said. He said an eighth officer remains hospitalised in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the head.

Three of the slain policemen were decapitated after being shot during clashes with pro-Aristide demonstrators last week.

Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue, who is leading a US-backed transitional government installed after Aristide was ousted in February, has said the police killings were part of an offensive by pro-Aristide gangs dubbed “Operation Baghdad”.

Deadly clashes continued between street gangs in Cite Soleil, a Port-au-Prince shantytown teeming with Aristide supporters, where police shot and killed two gang leaders last week.

“I don’t know how many or who was killed, but people were killed,” said Cite Soleil Mayor Corneille Jean-Jorel.

The violence in Port-au-Prince, in southern Haiti, has coincided with the chaotic aftermath of Tropical Storm Jeanne in the northwest.

As rescuers recovered more bodies from the devastating floods and mudslides around Gonaives, the official death toll rose to 1,870, with another 884 people reported missing and most presumed dead.

The Norwegian Red Cross yesterday sent a 100-bed field hospital and an expert team to Gonaives to help storm victims. The team also planned to rebuild as quickly as possible a 179-bed field hospital that was set up earlier this year but was severely damaged by Jeanne.