PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (AP) – Heavy gunfire rang out near Haiti’s presidential palace Wednesday as Secretary of State Colin Powell prepared to meet with the country’s interim leaders. He denounced the violence as the work of thugs.

Powell said international peacekeeping troops need to come down hard on street toughs and those who carry out political violence in Haiti.

“They have to forcefully take on those armed individuals of the kind who were firing this morning,” Powell said after meetings at the National Palace with President Boniface Alexandre, Prime Minister Gerard Latortue and other political leaders.

Haiti is still beset with violence and political infighting as the one-year anniversary of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide’s ouster approaches in February. The country’s caretaker government has pledged open elections next fall, a goal Powell said Haiti can meet with outside help.

“The only outcome that will satisfy the U.S. is an election next year that is free and fair, … that is not fraudulent and stolen,” Powell said later in his one-day trip to shore up democratic efforts in the desperately poor country.

The United States, and Powell in particular, have been instrumental in Haiti’s chaotic power shifts over the past decade. Powell was once an Aristide supporter but helped arrange Aristide’s exile this year.

“I’m deeply saddened the opportunity that was given to Mr. Aristide a decade ago was wasted,” Powell said Wednesday. “But the Haitian people have a new opportunity.”

Aristide and others claim the Bush administration coerced him to leave. Aristide’s followers say Powell signed onto a plan to remove Aristide because he was viewed as a troublemaker whose unpopularity could destabilize Haiti and cause a tide of refugees to head for U.S. shores.

The administration says Aristide departed voluntarily.

Details of the palace shooting were unclear. Gunshots, including several long bursts of automatic weapons fire, were heard in front of the palace shortly after Powell entered with a small U.S. delegation.

A palace security official said a shot was fired from a passing car, and U.N. forces guarding the palace returned fire.

Several U.N. tanks appeared a short while later and patrolled the palace front.

In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said that at the time of the gunshots, Powell was in a holding room at the palace. Powell and others in his delegation heard the gunshots, Ereli said. The incident prompted a change of meeting rooms but otherwise had no effect on Powell’s schedule or plans.

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