Aristide supporters on the rampage in Haiti

Supporters of ousted Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide called for a third day of demonstrations to demand his return today and hurled rocks at passing cars on streets littered with debris and overturned vehicles in the capital Port-au-Prince.

The death toll rose to at least seven people as police chief Leon Charles said that four police were killed in clashes. The headless bodies of three officers turned up yesterday, while another’s body was recovered after he was shot on Thursday.

“Aristide’s partisans have begun an urban guerrilla operation that they call Operation Baghdad,” human rights activist Jean-Claude Bajeux said. “The decapitations are imitative of those in Iraq, and they are meant to show the failure of US policy in Haiti.”

Aristide has accused US agents of kidnapping him when he was flown out of Haiti on a US-chartered jet in February amid a bloody rebellion. The US government insists Aristide left of his own free will.

Most vendors stayed home as supporters of Aristide, now in exile in South Africa, took to the streets.

Aristide’s Lavalas Family party on Thursday began three days of commemoration of the 1991 coup that toppled Aristide’s first government. They also demanded an end to “the occupation” and “the invasion” by foreign troops – referring to the US-led force that followed Aristide’s ousting and the UN peacekeepers who have taken over since June.

Masked gunmen were shooting into the air early this morning in the traditionally pro-Aristide neighbourhood of Bel Air.

“There is shooting. They are throwing rocks. People can’t walk on the street,” said Bonhonne Esperance, 42, an unemployed security guard in the area.

Gunfire also erupted early today in the slum of La Saline, and some people threw rocks at cars, residents said.

At daybreak a team of Haitian police patrolled downtown Port-au-Prince by car, training their rifles down busy side streets. No UN peacekeepers were seen in the area.

Brazilian troops came under fire while on patrol on Thursday in the traditionally pro-Aristide slum of Cite Soleil, a seaside slum teeming with gangsters loyal to Aristide. UN spokesman Toussaint Kongo-Doudou said the Brazilians returned fire but no injuries were reported.

The Haitian broadcaster Radio Metropole reported at least one civilian shot and killed in a pro-Aristide demonstration yesterday. Justice Minister Bernard Gousse said police also killed two gang leaders and wounded a third on Thursday in fighting in Cite Soleil.

Tensions have exploded in Haiti as the country struggles to recover from catastrophic floods caused by Tropical Storm Jeanne two weeks ago. The storm killed more than 1,550 and left some 900 missing, most presumed dead. It also left an estimated 300,000 homeless, some 200,000 of them in the north-western city of Gonaives.

The storm’s aftermath has tied up some 750 of the 3,000 UN peacekeeping troops in Haiti.

On Friday in Port-au-Prince’s western suburb of Martissant, protesters fired shots in the air, blocked a highway with piles of burning tires and smashed car windows, witnesses said.