Violence will lead Haiti's pro-Aristide party nowhere: premier

PORT-AU-PRINCE (AFP) - Haitian Prime Minister Gerard Latortue warned members of exiled president Jean Bertrand Aristide's Lavalas party that "violence would lead them nowhere," and invited them to "join the electoral process which would be scrupulously adhered to."
In an address broadcast by several radio stations here, Latortue hailed the success on Friday of a day of protest organized by Haitian business against violence by Lavalas-backed gangs.
That success demonstrated, he said, that "the population rejects violence, confrontation, and that it is only a small minority that is trying to destabilize both the country and the government, but they won't succeed."
Haiti's strife-torn capital came to a standstill Friday with a national call for peace after two weeks of deepening violence in which 30 people have died.
The United States closed its embassy in Haiti to mark the protest and renewed a warning to US citizens to leave the country, a day after allowing some diplomats to depart.