Haiti students hold memorial for slain classmate By Michael Deibert Port-au-Prince, Jan 21, 2003 (Reuters) Weeping, carrying banners and calling for the arrest of a well-known government activist, university students in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince today held a memorial service for one of their number murdered during a national strike last week in what students are charging was a government-linked hit. The coffin of Eric Pierre, a third-year medical student, was draped in wreaths as students formed a crowd estimated at around 2,000 at the university's Medical Faculty in the capital's city center. Pierre was shot dead while walking on the streets of Port-au-Prince last Tuesday during a work stoppage by public transport workers over fuel prices, which have nearly double in recent weeks. Also in attendance were opposition policitians, including former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul and Leslie Manigat, who served a brief term as Haiti's president before being ousted by the military in the mid 1980's. The ceremony was interrupted several times by groups of students calling for the arrest of Rene Civil, a student at the university's political science faculty and a partisan of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Students charge that an official state vehicle registered to Civil was spotted at the scene of Pierre's murder. Several students carried signs referring to the crime. "The license number of the criminal's car is 0254," read one sign. "When will we have justice?" asked another. Civil has vehemently denied the accusations. "These charges are a baseless invention designed to destroy me," Civil told private Radio Kiskeya in an interview. "They are a complete fabrication and I plan to contact my lawyer to defend myself." Aristide, a former Roman Catholic priest, was first elected to the presidency on this impoverished Caribbean nation in 1990 but was ousted in a coup months later. U.S. troops helped restore him to power in 1994. Since his reelection in November 2000, he has been locked in a bitter dispute with opposition politicians over May 2000 parliamentary elections that observers said were rigged to favor Aristide's Lavalas Family party. His government has been odds with students at the State University of Haiti since last summer over what students charge is government interference in the educational system. On Monday, a group of 184 political and civic organizations called for a general strike to occur on Firday in protest of what they characterized as the Aristide government's unwillingness to reign in armed gangs acting on its behalf and create a climate of security for legislative elections to be held sometime within the next six months.