US Marines shoot, wound two men in Haiti’s capital
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – US Marines shot and wounded two men who didn’t stop at a checkpoint in Haiti’s volatile capital, a military spokesman said yesterday, angering relatives who said the men were out buying medicine.
A French Legionnaire was accidentally shot and killed by another French soldier who was cleaning his rifle. It was the first fatality for international peace-keepers in Haiti, the US military said in a statement yesterday.
Lance Corporal Johnny Tupana, 27, of Wallis and Futuna, French Polynesia, was wounded Saturday night in northern Gonaives, where he was working with the Third French Foreign Legion Infantry Regiment. He was flown by helicopter to a French ship off Haiti’s coast where he later died.
French forces were investigating the accident.
The latest US Marine shooting occurred late Saturday in Port-au-Prince’s Pont Morin residential neighbourhood, half-an-hour after a 10:00 pm curfew imposed by international peace-keepers, Major Richard Crusan told The Associated Press.
The Marines were on patrol when two men in an all-terrain vehicle slowly drove past a checkpoint and ignored orders to stop, Crusan said.
Soldiers opened fire, hitting one man in the head and the other in the stomach, he said. Both were in stable condition at Canape Vert Hospital.
Relatives identified the driver as Louis Rene Balmir, 43, and the passenger as Marcel Luckman.
Marines said they recovered a pistol with three clips of ammunition from the vehicle. Crusan said he didn’t know if the men fired on the Marines.
“It’s still a little cloudy right now,” he said. “We don’t know if the Marines fired because the car ran the checkpoint or if the occupants fired at them.”
The Marines form part of a multinational security force that arrived in Haiti after President Jean-Bertrand Aristide left the country on February 29.
Aristide claims Washington forced him out; the United States insists he resigned under pressure from a rebellion led by street gangs and former military officers. Some 300 people died in the three-week uprising.
Marines say they have come under attack several times, apparently by “chimeres”, or armed Aristide militants. Six Haitians were killed and one Marine was wounded in incidents before Saturday night’s shooting.
At Canape Vert Hospital, angry relatives and friends accused the Marines of shooting without warning.
They said Balmir and Luckman were driving to an all-night pharmacy to get asthma medicine for Balmir’s son and never saw the Marine checkpoint. Many parts of the city are dark because of power blackouts.
