3 Die in Haiti as Protesters, Soldiers Clash
Thousands of demonstrators across Haiti set up flaming tire barricades and burned cars Thursday to protest the army’s killing of a schoolgirl. Three people were killed and at least 12 hurt in clashes with soldiers.
About 3,000 people shouting slogans against Haiti’s leader, Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril, converged near the National Palace after attending a memorial service for 11-year-old Roseline Vaval, shot to death by the army Monday.
Along the road leading from this capital to the town of Petit Goave, where the girl was buried Thursday, thousands of protesters burned a police car and other automobiles and built barricades of blazing tires. Radio Metropole said that the dead included a soldier beaten to death by the crowd.
Later, protesters leaving a memorial service in the slum neighborhood of Bel Air left flaming tires at crossroads along the route into this city. Soldiers used truncheons and fired into the air to disperse about 1,000 protesters.
Avril, who came to power in September, 1988, in a coup led by rank-and-file soldiers, has been under increasing pressure from opposition groups to resign.
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