Haitian militants demanding the return of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide hurled rocks and set barricades of flaming tires ablaze yesterday, blocking a main road in Port-au-Prince and threatening renewed turmoil as the country waited to hear who will be the new prime minister.

　　The body of a man lay near the barricade, with gunshot wounds. The circumstances of his killing were not immediately clear. The toll from a monthlong rebellion and reprisal killings rose to more than 300, with the Pan-American Health Organization reporting an estimated 200 corpses rotting at the capital's state morgue were those of victims of the violence.

　　Newly appointed officials were meeting yesterday to pick a new prime minister from three top candidates - ignoring Aristide's claim from his faraway asylum in the Central African Republic that he remains Haiti's democratically elected leader.

　　At his first public appearance since his departure, Aristide on Monday renewed allegations that he was abducted and forced from power by the United States - claims strongly denied by US officials who say they saved his life.

　　Aristide called on his followers to offer a "peaceful resistance" to what he called "an occupation."

　　US Marines started arriving the day he left Haiti, leading a vanguard of peacekeepers that yesterday included about 1,600 Marines, 800 French legionnaires and police, 130 Chilean troops and about 70 Canadian troops.

　　The US Marines denied reports that they were fired on Monday in the downtown Bel-Air neighborhood that is a stronghold of Aristide, as protesters marched and chanted "Aristide or death!" No Marine casualties were reported on Monday.

　　Military helicopters circled over the slum neighborhoods filled with Aristide supporters on Monday, and Marines patrolled in armored cars and on foot in downtown Port-au-Prince.

　　"What the Americans did was a sham," said Bertrand Exilus, a 32-year-old tailor. "We elected Aristide. We did not elect Alexandre. George W. Bush does not respect democracy."

　　(The Associated Press)