Jean Bertrand Aristide

First word came as the shrill morning calls of roosters were echoing off the walls of shantytowns and villas in this still-slumbering Caribbean city Sunday. Within minutes, there were explosions of celebratory gunfire, happy cries of "Ca y est!" -- "It's over!" -- and outbreaks of looting. In the wealthy hillside suburb of Petionville, scores of boys and young men sacked an abandoned police station, carrying away police helmets and shields, thermos bottles and battered file cabinets.

Robert Manuel doesn't say much, but his omnipresence at the side of President-elect Rene Preval speaks volumes about the next head of state's newfound independence. Manuel was national security chief in the first years of Preval's 1996-2001 presidency but was forced to resign after a crackdown on drug traffickers netted some loyalists of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who served as president before and after Preval.

Ousted President JeanBertrand Aristide has the constitutional right to return to Haiti whenever he chooses but may want to keep in mind that charges have been filed against him, President-elect Rene Preval said Wednesday. In his first major public statement since being declared the winner last week of a Feb.

Haiti: An April 13 article in Section A about the ouster of Haitian Prime Minister Jacques-Edouard Alexis incorrectly reported earlier observations by President Rene Preval about his exiled predecessor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. It reported Preval as having said that Aristide could be subject to arrest if he returned to Haiti because of pending criminal charges against him in Miami alleging corruption and instigating violence. The allegations were not criminal but part of a civil complaint brought by the interim government of Haiti against Aristide in U.S. District Court in southern Florida in November 2005.

A surveillance plane assigned to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti crashed into a mountain, killing all 11 military personnel on board, the United Nations said. U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas in New York said the Uruguayan CASA 212 aircraft went down in rugged terrain west of Fonds-Verrettes near the border with the Dominican Republic. Rescue teams had to go to the area on foot because there were no roads there. When they arrived, they found no survivors, she said. The bodies were recovered and were being taken back to the capital, Port-au-Prince, according to a statement from the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Haiti.

It's been a year since Jean-Bertrand Aristide fled Haiti's presidential palace on a U.S. jet, but a question still nags many people here and in Washington: Did he jump or was he pushed? Almost immediately after landing in Africa, where he remains in exile, Aristide began alleging that he was "kidnapped" by U.S. Marines and that he was forced to resign in a U.S.-led "coup d'etat."

Thousands of supporters of exiled former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide marched peacefully through a Haitian slum, calling for his return. Three hundred heavily armed United Nations peacekeepers and 50 vehicles secured the demonstration, said Col. Carlos Barcelos, a spokesman for the troops.

As Haiti's crippled body politic tries to mend itself for fall elections, activists in former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas Party are risking the pitfall of "divide and conquer." Until recently, Lavalas politicians had refused to take part in preparations for the vote, demanding that Aristide first be allowed to return from South African exile and serve out his term.

An opposition alliance trying to force President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to resign announced a new wave of protests -- including a two-day nationwide strike -- to show the depth of popular disenchantment with the once-beloved leader. Monday's appeal for an intensified campaign of civil disobedience follows violent clashes with police and pro-Aristide gangs during Haiti's bicentennial celebrations on New Year's Day.