Interim Leader Installed In Haiti

Haiti's interim president took the reigns of his country's shattered government Monday, as ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide restated his claim to be Haiti's true leader from his faraway African asylum and his supporters shouted demands for his return at the gates of the National Palace.

"Aristide or death!" Aristide followers yelled, their voices carrying into the room where President Boniface Alexandre was installed at the presidential palace and urged the chaotic country to remain calm.

"We are all brothers and sisters," said Alexandre, who has served as president for a week and was officially sworn in on Sunday. "We are all in the same boat, and if it sinks, it sinks with all of us."

Military helicopters circled overhead and U.S. Marines in armored cars patrolled the streets outside the palace where Aristide's bereaved followers declared: "Like it or not, Aristide must come back!"

"What the Americans did was a sham," said Bertrand Exilus, a 32-year-old tailor. "We elected Aristide. We did not elect Alexandre. George W. Bush does not respect democracy."

Alexandre did not address Aristide's claim that he still is Haiti's president, made at a his first public appearance since he arrived March 1 in Central African Republic, aboard a plane chartered by the U.S. government.

"I am the democratically elected president and I remain so. I plead for the restoration of democracy," Aristide said from Bangui, the capital of another impoverished and coup-ridden state.

"We appeal for a peaceful resistance," he added, saying his Feb. 29 departure was a "political kidnapping (that) unfortunately opened the road to an occupation."

The United States denies Aristide's charge that Washington forced him to step down. But the 15-nation Caribbean Community has called for an international investigation.

U.S. Marines and French Legionnaires began arriving the same day he left to form the vanguard of a U.N. force to restore peace in Haiti, where a monthlong rebellion left more than 130 dead. Reprisal killings continue.

A frenzy of looting that erupted the day before Aristide's flight and waned with the arrival of peacekeepers resurged Monday. Hundreds of people ransacked Port-au-Prince's industrial park, carrying away wood paneling, toilets, even a plastic Mickey Mouse. One looter wore the top part of horse costume on his head as he made off with a mirror. The looting took place less than a kilometer (half a mile) from the international airport where U.S. Marines have set up base.

Inside the palace, Alexandre, the country's Supreme Court chief justice, urged people "to keep calm. No one has the right to do justice by themselves."

Monday's pro-Aristide protest was mostly peaceful, a sharp contrast to the massive anti-Aristide protest Sunday on which gunmen opened fire, killing at least five people, including a foreign journalist. A sixth victim died of wounds overnight, doctors at Canape Vert Hospital said.

U.S. Marines shot and killed one of the gunmen, a spokesman said Monday.

Among the people killed were Spanish television correspondent Ricardo Ortega. Dozens were injured, including South Florida photographer Michael Laughlin, 37.

Col. Charles Gurganus told a news conference that the gunman was trying to attack Marines when he was killed Sunday.

Gurganus said the shooting occurred near one corner of the presidential National Palace when a Marine platoon observed two gunmen. One was killed, while the troops did not know what happened to the other, he said.

Asked how he knew the man killed was a gunman, Gurganus said: "He had a gun, and he was shooting at Marines. That's what I call a gunman."