Ex-Haitian soldiers end stand-off

Former Haitian soldiers who had seized a building in northern Haiti have changed out of their uniforms and peacefully filed out, ending a standoff of nearly 24 hours after negotiations with government officials.

The protesters were seeking back wages and the reinstatement of the Haitian armed forces, which were disbanded in 1995 by Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the former president.

UN peacekeepers and Haitian police loaded the protesters on Wednesday onto two yellow school buses to take them out of the area.

The uthorities released no details of the negotiations, which included Paul Antonine Bien-Aime, the interior minister, and Jean-Claude Jeudi, an ex-army colonel, who was not among the protesters.

It was not immediately known what ended the protest or whether the government granted any concessions to the former soldiers.

The talks took place as UN peacekeepers in armoured vehicles and Haitian police surrounded the former Cap-Hatien prison, which is now used as a music school.

Fred Blaise, a UN police spokesman, said a second soldiers'protest in a former barracks in Ouanaminthe, a northern Haitian town on the border with the Dominican Republic, had ended as well.

'Political manipulation'

Patrick Elie, an adviser to Rene Preval, the Haitian president, said the protest was "political manipulation" to keep pressure on Preval, who already this year has faced protesters trying to storm the national palace and the Senate's removal of his prime minister, who has not been replaced.