After Radio Caraibes was the target of a drive-by shooting and death threats, it and three other stations - Radio Metropole, Vision 2000 and Radio Kiskeya - suspended broadcasts. Station owners said Aristide thugs have vowed to attack.

The threats came as thousands of university students poured into the streets, one of the largest anti-government demonstrations in a country where student protests toppled two previous governments.

At least eight students were wounded in Thursday's demonstration. A bystander was shot and killed in a separate protest in the town of Gonaives on Haiti's west coast.

"The government wants to put an end to freedom of press in Haiti," said Lylianne Pierre-Paul, co-owner of Radio Kiskeya. "They blame the media for reporting what is happening."

Since Haiti's most prominent journalist, Jean Dominique, was murdered in April 2000 outside his radio station, at least one other journalist has been killed and several have fled the country.

The government says the recent surge in protests are meant to spoil celebrations for Haiti's bicentennial on Jan. 1 and are intended to overthrow the country's first freely elected leader. Despite calls by opponents to step down, Aristide says he will serve out his term, which ends in 2006.

The former priest was deposed in a military coup in 1991 and restored by a U.S. invasion three years later. He stepped down in 1996 due to a ban on consecutive four-year terms and was re-elected in a landslide in 2000.

But his popularity has waned as the Caribbean nation sinks deeper into despair. Most of Haiti's 8 million residents are jobless and live on less than $1 a day in a country with bleak economic prospects.

"Aristide has mismanaged the country," said Pierre Joseph, a 22-year-old student from the University of Haiti. "Every sector of the country is suffering and saying we've had enough!"

Two university students were shot Thursday as they fled police firing tear gas and warning shots. It was unclear who shot the students.

The demonstrations came a day after Haiti's Education Minister Marie-Carmel Paule Austin resigned, saying she was "horrified" over a recent attack on university students. Government spokesman Mario Dupuy claimed she left the post because she was being investigated for misappropriation of funds.

More than 24 people were injured last Friday at the university's Human Sciences College, when government supporters attacked about 100 students calling for Aristide's resignation.

Aristide supporters ransacked university buildings and set fire to a nearby house. University Rector Pierre-Marie Pacquiot was hospitalized after Aristide partisans allegedly beat his legs with iron bars.

At least six people were shot, including one Aristide supporter and five students. A government commission is investigating the incident.

Student protests helped topple President Elie Lescot in 1946 and dictator Jean-Claude Duvalier in 1986.

"What has happened is unacceptable," said university professor Frantz Varella, who was Aristide's former Minister of Public Works. "These young people (students) aren't politicians. They are the intellectual elite of the future in revolt against the intolerable."

Aristide's administration has been locked in a stalemate with the opposition since flawed 2000 legislative elections that the opposition charged were rigged. Since mid-September, clashes during anti-government protests have killed at least 17 people.

Caption :  
top picture: the demonstration
Second picture: Aristide speaking on Wednesday at a news conference in the national palace.

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