Istwa Nou

Six weeks after taking power the council killed its first civilians. In Martissant a bus driver overtook an army captain's car, a thing nobody had risked under the old rule. The captain arrested him, crowds gathered, and the Leopard battalion shot five people dead. Gerard Gourgue resigned from the council over the killings and over the militiamen being helped out of the country. Alix Cineas and Prosper Avril went too, though Avril kept the chief of staff's job, which left three officers running Haiti. On 26 April several hundred people walked to Fort Dimanche after a mass for the prisoners who had died inside it. A young priest from the parish of Saint Jean Bosco, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, described the march live on Radio Soleil. The commandant had mounted machine guns on the roof. His men opened fire, a bullet cut a power line that fell on the marchers, and six died with fifty wounded. Aristide kept his microphone open throughout. The interior minister said people should behave properly at demonstrations.