U.N., Witnesses Differ Over Haiti Gunfire

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Gunfire erupted Monday during protests over election results in Haiti and at least one supporter of leading presidential candidate Rene Preval was killed. Witnesses said U.N. peacekeepers opened fire on the crowd, but a U.N. spokesman denied that.

Hundreds of screaming demonstrators elsewhere stormed past U.N. peacekeepers into an upscale hotel in the hills above Port-au-Prince and helicopters landed on the roof to evacuate guests, but no violence was reported.

The protests erupted amid increasing anger at vote counts from Tuesday's elections showing that Preval, a former president and one-time protege of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, may have fallen short of the 50 percent needed to win outright and avoid a runoff.

Across Port-au-Prince, barricades made of old tires were set ablaze, sending plumes of acrid black smoke into the sky. Protesters let only journalists and Red Cross vehicles pass.

``If they don't give us the final results, we're going to burn this country down,'' a man screamed at one of the roadblocks.

Dozens of witnesses said Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers opened fire on them, killing two and wounding four.

David Wimhurst, spokesman for the U.N. mission known here by its French acronym MINUSTAH, denied in a telephone interview that peacekeepers opened fire.

``We fired two warning shots into the air and we didn't injure anyone. Some time later, shots were fired by unknown persons in the same area,'' he said. As for the witnesses' account that peacekeepers shot protesters, he said: ``It's absolutely false.''

Associated Press journalists saw the body of a man in the street in the Tabarre neighborhood. He was wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt bearing an image of Preval.

``We were peacefully protesting when the U.N. started shooting. There were a lot of shots. Everybody ran,'' said Walrick Michel, 22.

Shortly after the shootings, people scattered in fear as a peacekeepers' convoy passed by, ducking behind stone mausoleums in a nearby graveyard. They then loaded the body of the shooting victim - identified by the crowd as 19-year-old Junior Cherry - into a pickup truck.

``MINUSTAH killed my brother. MINUSTAH, killed my brother,'' a woman wailed.

Meanwhile, in the Petionville neighborhood above Port-au-Prince, protesters converged on the upscale Montana Hotel where election officials have announced results of Tuesday's elections.

U.N. peacekeepers kept close watch from a driveway and rooftops as protesters squeezed into the hotel's lobby and down the steep sloping driveway, waving posters and tree branches and chanting: ``Now is the time! Now is the time!''

South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate Desmond Tutu, who had appealed for calm at church services Sunday, was seen on a balcony surveying the crowd as helicopters landed on the roof to evacuate people.

Blue-helmeted U.N. peacekeepers controlled access to a separate part of the hotel that was being used as an election center. The doors to the election center were chained and there was no one inside.

Protesters have alleged the electoral commission is manipulating the vote count to prevent Preval from winning a first-round victory in this battered and poor Caribbean nation.

With some 90 percent of the vote counted, Preval was leading with 48.7 percent of the vote, Haiti's electoral council said on its Web site. His nearest opponent was Leslie Manigat, another former president, who had 11.8 percent.

But of the 2.2 million ballots cast, about 125,000 ballots have been declared invalid because of irregularities, raising suspicion among Preval supporters that polling officials are trying to steal the election.

Another 4 percent of the ballots were blank but were still added into the total, making it harder for Preval to obtain the 50 percent plus one vote needed.

Throngs of Preval supporters poured into the streets, chanting angry allegations of fraud, after two members of Haiti's electoral council questioned the counting procedures.

Electoral council member Pierre Richard Duchemin said he was being denied access to information about the tabulation process and called for an investigation.

``According to me, there's a certain level of manipulation,'' Duchemin told The Associated Press, adding ``there is an effort to stop people from asking questions.''

Earlier Monday, Preval supporters blew horns and pounded drums outside the electoral center, denouncing Jacques Bernard, director-general of the nine-member electoral council, as a ``thief.''

``He doesn't know how to count,'' they chanted as police held them off with rifles and shotguns.

Bernard has denied accusations that the council voided many votes for Preval.

Patrick Fequiere, who is also on the nine-member electoral council, said on local radio that Bernard was releasing results without notifying other council members, who did not know where Bernard was obtaining his information.

The elections will replace an interim government installed after Aristide was ousted in a bloody rebellion two years ago.

A popularly elected government with a clear mandate from the voters was seen as crucial to avoiding a political and economic meltdown in the western hemisphere's poorest nation where, gangs have gone on kidnapping sprees and many factories have closed for lack of security.

Jean-Henoc Faroul, president of an electoral district with 400,000 voters northeast of the capital, accused the electoral commission of trying to force a runoff, saying ballot tally sheets from Preval strongholds have vanished.

``The electoral council is trying to do what it can to diminish the percentage of Preval so it goes to a second round,'' said Faroul, who openly supports Preval's candidacy.

Wimhurst confirmed that tally sheets with vote results have been found dumped in the garbage, but said the sheets might have been mishandled by election workers and it was not necessarily evidence of fraud.

He said 136 tally sheets containing the results of possibly thousands of votes had still not been processed, and others were still being delivered from outlying districts.

Doors were removed from the tabulation center to prevent electoral council lawyers huddling in private, Wimhurst said.