U.S. Marines, now the only law in Haiti's second-largest city, reduced their patrols overnight in Cap-Haitien to discourage street celebrations.
The government issued a communique Monday urging citizens to surrender their weapons at Haitian army outposts. On Sunday, residents turned over their guns to American forces in Cap-Haitien rather than give them to the hated Haitian military.Few people were at the Port-au-Prince docks Monday following an outpouring of support for U.S. soldiers Sunday evening. About 10,000 pro-American celebrants massed around the airport to gawk at the U.S. war machinery; one Haitian pushed a wheelbarrow containing a mock coffin for despised junta leader Raoul Cedras.
Few of Haiti's hated security forces were on the streets of Cap-Haitien on Sunday, a day after a Marine patrol killed 10 Haitian gunmen in the first clash with the U.S. troops that flooded into the country a week ago to help restore the elected government.
An estimated 800 police, soldiers and "attaches," civilian gunmen attached to the army, have either gone into hiding or fled, abandoning their police headquarters and an army barracks.
A U.S. Coast Guard cutter, meanwhile, carried 221 Haitian refugees from the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, toward Port-au-Prince. It was expected to dock sometime Monday afternoon.
The Haitians, picked up at sea while trying to flee to the United States, volunteered to return after U.S. officials visited their tent camps on the base, officials said.
About 14,000 Haitians are being held on the base. Since June, nearly 6,000 Haitians detained in Guantanamo have returned voluntarily.
Hundreds of Haitians, emboldened by the deaths of the armed men in the firefight with Marines, ransacked police stations, carrying off guns, identity cards, even musical instruments.
The Marines, meanwhile, backed off their initial report that the Haitians fired first Saturday night, touching off the deadly gun battle outside the Cap-Haitien police station.
"One of our patrols saw a gesture by an individual with an Uzi machine gun. He took that individual out and a firefight began," said Col. Tom Jones, commanding officer of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force.
"The lieutenant shot him when he made a gesture to raise his Uzi," Jones continued.
He said he could not say who fired first - Lt. Virg Palumbo, 24, of Windber, Pa., or the Haitians.
Francis Jose, a Haitian-American Navy apprentice serving as an interpreter, suffered a flesh wound in the leg during the gun battle Saturday night and was evacuated to the USS Wasp for treatment. A Haitian seriously wounded in the firefight also was taken to the American helicopter carrier.
The gunfight broke out after an Echo Company platoon from the 2nd Marine Battalion of Camp Lejeune, N.C., which was on its evening patrol, stopped across the street from the police barracks.
In the early morning hours Sunday, police and soldiers abandoned their posts.
Word spread quickly to the streets, and hundreds poured out to loot the empty buildings.
Crowds also caught at least two attaches, tied their hands behind their backs and turned them over to Marines. The first man, captured Sunday morning, was not harmed. But the second, discovered in his home late in the day, was severely beaten.