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Haitian Election Results Spark Riots

Tens of thousands of angry protesters erected flaming barricades, stormed a luxury hotel and marched through the streets of Haiti, protesting presidential election returns showing that frontrunner Rene Preval may face a runoff election. At least one supporter of Preval was killed. News service journalists saw the body of a man, wearing a blood-soaked T-shirt bearing an image of Preval, in the street in the Tabarre neighborhood.

Witnesses say that U.N. peacekeepers opened fire on the crowd, but a U.N. spokesman denies the allegations. Witnesses say Jordanian U.N. peacekeepers opened fire, killing two and wounding four. "If you shoot at us, we`re going to burn all this down,`` the crowd chanted as U.N. gunships hovered overhead. Many believed that members of the country`s election council were staying at the hotel and demanded to speak to the council`s director general, Jacques Bernard.

Results posted Sunday showed Preval leading with 49.1 percent of the vote, with some 75 percent of the ballots counted. He was followed by former president Leslie Manigat with 11.7 percent. Preval needed a 50 percent plus one vote to avoid a runoff scheduled for March 19. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, in Haiti for a previously scheduled visit, attempted to disperse the crowd from a balcony at the hotel, but many among the protesters had no idea who he was.