Friday September 1 5:59 p.m. EDT

U.N. Peacekeeper Shot in Head in Haiti

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuter) - A French member of the U.N. peacekeeping force in Haiti was shot in the head by an unidentified assailant and critically wounded, U.N. sources said Friday.

Marshall Christian Marginier, 36, a member of the U.N. civilian police force in the western town of Petit Goave, was preparing to go to bed when he was shot in the head Thursday night from a distance of about 10 yards (metres), U.N. spokesman Eric Falt said at a news briefing.

``The population has always been perfectly friendly with us,'' said a U.N. official in Petit Goave, speaking on condition of anonymity. ``We have to ask ourselves if this was the work of a crazy person or a premeditated attack.''

The official said the attacker had left behind a tract stating that President Jean-Bertrand Aristide had not kept his promise to pay many of Haiti's newly demobilized soldiers.

Marginier was flown to a hospital in Miami, said Falt. He said no suspects had been identified.

The shooting occurred on the eve of an inauguration ceremony for the opening of an office of the joint U.N-Organization of American States human rights monitoring mission, to be located in Petit Goave.

In March, the United Nations took over security duties in Haiti from a U.S.-led force which in October restored democratically elected Aristide to the office he lost in a military coup in 1991.

U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi this week reiterated the organization's intention to pull out its 900 police officers and 6,000 military personnel stationed in Haiti in February 1996.