World Notes HAITI

The lights went out just after 7 p.m. Then a granade exploded and gunfire was heard. With that, a street corner in Petionville, seven miles outside the capital of Port-au-Prince, was turned into a horror scene of shattered bodies and mangled limbs. Seven people were killed and 54 wounded.

/ The carnage occurred at a rally last week for the Rev. Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the popular priest who is the front runner in this Sunday's presidential elections and a survivor of at least three assassination attempts. Father Aristide blamed the violence on the Tontons Macoutes, the notorious secret police force loyal to the deposed Duvalier dictatorship. Together with the army, the Macoutes had forced cancellation of the 1987 elections by massacring 34 voters. But this time Haitians seemed determined to vote, no matter what calamities occurred on the campaign trail. Said a caller to Radio Haiti-Inter: "We're at the last station of the cross on the Calvary to our elections, and by God, we'll make it."