
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, October 15, 1993                   TAG: 9310150141
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: PORT-AU-PRINCE, HAITI                                LENGTH: Medium

HAITIAN VIOLENCE ESCALATES ASSASSINS MURDER JUSTICE MINISTER

Assassins gunned down Haiti's reformist justice minister and two others Thursday in a violent escalation of the tense showdown that is building between President Clinton and Haitian military leaders determined to block the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Gunmen opened fire on Justice Minister Guy Malary, 50, as he left his offices for the brief drive to the downtown Legislative Assembly. He was on his way to talk with lawmakers about military demands for a general amnesty for soldiers and officers participating in the 1991 coup that ousted Aristide.

Malary's driver and bodyguard were shot to death with him.

Meanwhile in Washington, Clinton hinted at using U.S. Navy ships to enforce a United Nations-brokered plan to restore Aristide to power by Oct. 30.

"The people in Haiti would be sadly misguided if they think the United States has weakened its resolve," Clinton told reporters at a White House news conference. His comments came two days after the USS Harlan County retreated from Haiti in the face of a jeering mob at a Port-au-Prince dock.

Malary was investigating military involvement in the September execution of prominent Aristide supporter Antione Izmery. Reporters found a crowd of police and their plainclothes auxiliaries, known as attaches, milling around Malary's overturned car alongside the Sacre Coeur Church, where gunmen had executed Izmery. The three bullet-riddled bodies lay beside the car.

Prime Minister Robert Malval, the head of the civilian transition government that is to smooth the way for Aristide's return, insisted he would not be intimidated.

But officials in Malval's government said the assassination of Malary demonstrated the vulnerable position they were left in after Clinton ordered the Harlan County to leave Haitian waters on Tuesday.

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by CNB