Haitian Government warns of coup

Yvon Neptune said the opposition should play a role in stopping the violence and help the country to hold elections.

The latest clashes have occurred in the western town of St Marc, where rebels set the police station on fire.

There are reports of widespread looting around the port, with hundreds said to be stealing television sets and sacks of flour from shipping containers.

Civilians flee

Further north, police have withdrawn from the rebel-held city of Gonaives.

Most of the city's 20,000 inhabitants are also believed to have fled.

Police had been trying to regain control of Gonaives since guerrillas - who describe themselves as the Gonaives Resistance Front - seized control of it on Friday.

At least nine people are reported to have been killed in clashes in the city.

Communication lines are down but television pictures show corpses lying in the roads, with armed men roaming the streets.

The World Food Programme, which has its main food aid distribution point in Gonaives, has warned that the escalating violence is disrupting its efforts to combat malnutrition in Haiti.

A WFP spokesman, Alejandro Chicheri, told the BBC that more than 500,000 Haitians were facing serious food shortages.

Opposition fears

Opposition groups are calling for the president's resignation, saying he stole the 2000 election that returned him to power.

They also accuse him of corruption and human rights violations.

The mainstream opposition is trying to present itself as a viable alternative to Mr Aristide and does not back the uprising in Gonaives.

The BBC's Nick Caistor says they are concerned that groups such as those which took over Gonaives are little more than armed gangs without any defined political beliefs.

Prime Minister Neptune accused the rebels of trying to overthrow the government.

"This violence is connected to a coup attempt," he said in a television interview.

President Aristide has offered to hold parliamentary elections but insists he will serve out his second term in office, which ends in 2006.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3470911.stm