PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) - Haitian police investigating the killing of four colleagues traded gunfire with former soldiers yesterday in a clash that heightened tension between security forces and members of Haiti's demobilised army that helped oust President Jean-Bertrand Aristide last year.

The four policemen were killed Sunday night while patrolling near the international airport in Haiti's volatile capital, Port-au-Prince, police spokeswoman Gessie Coicou said.
Several other officers who escaped the attack identified the assailants as former soldiers wearing olive-green military uniforms, Coicou said. The attackers stole two Uzi machine guns, four shotguns and a police radio.

In an operation early yesterday, police went to arrest the alleged attackers at the building where many armed former soldiers live in suburban Petionville, just above the capital, Coicou said. Several people inside the house fled, touching off a shoot-out between police and ex-soldiers.

No one was hurt in the exchange and no arrests were made.
Coicou called the shooting the latest in a spate of attacks by ex-soldiers against police. She accused former soldiers of kidnapping six policemen in the capital last week, but refused to cite any evidence against them. Five officers have since been released, while the whereabouts of the sixth is unknown, she said.

Remissainthe Ravix, a leader of the former soldiers, denied involvement in attacks on police and condemned yesterday's clash.

"They shouldn't be shooting at us ... because former soldiers had nothing to do with the police killings," Ravix said. "We were all at the base or at carnival last night."

The clash came as Haiti's US-backed interim government and 7,400-member UN peacekeeping force struggle to curb escalating violence a year after rebels and former soldiers launched an armed rebellion that led to Aristide's departure on February 29.

Aristide demobilised Haiti's 7,500-member army after US troops restored him to power in 1994, following three years of military-backed rule. He was re-elected to a second five-year term in 2000.

The interim government has been reluctant to confront the ex-soldiers, who refuse to lay down their weapons and want the army reinstated.

Haiti's three-day carnival began Sunday, with many revellers staying away amid security fears.

No violence was reported during the celebrations, but three men and a woman were found shot to death in a slum near the parade route, said Brazilian Cmdr Carlos Chagas Braga of the UN peacekeeping force.

More than 250 people - including 23 police officers - have died in clashes in the capital since September, when Aristide supporters stepped up demands for his return from exile in South Africa.

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