PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti -- Bermuda's weary footballers arrived at the team hotel here last night 12 hours after leaving Bermuda on their World Cup mission.

Soon after, though, their comfortable rooms were still vacant as trainer Nick Jones had them doing light exercises near the pool.

The more serious stuff starts this morning when manager Gary Darrell, who conducted a television interview within minutes of arriving, hopes to have them training at the nearby National Stadium where the match will be held on Sunday.

"We were at the airport at 5.30 this morning and then didn't arrive here until 12 hours later so everybody is feeling a little weary,'' said Darrell.

"Everbody seems to be upbeat and well aware of what we're here to do. We're looking forward to getting on with the job at hand. We've never beaten them here and I have a very high regard for the Haitian team. The team we played the other day is one of the weaker Haitian teams I've seen but I expect this to be real tough.'' Added Darrell: "If we're able to get on the stadium in the morning then there may be no need to go again in the evening. It's just as important that they get some rest rather than working in the heat and not having time to recover before the match.'' Despite the political turmoil the country is experiencing because of the ousting of democratically elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in a military coup last September, the Bermuda tour saw none of that during their 20-minute drive to the hotel. Hotel management have advised them not to venture out of the hotel at night, however.

"Even Kenny Thompson said `that's no problem, we're here to do a job' and I'm hoping that's the attitude of all the players,'' said Darrell.

Troops broke up a general strike by anti-government groups yesterday and human rights activists said four people were killed in scattered violence throughout the Haitian capital.

The activists said the four people died in separate incidents when military units took to the streets to disband protest groups which were attempting to set up barricades of old tyres in the streets.

The deaths could not be independently confirmed.

The activists said in one incident soldiers forced a group of supporters of Aristide to disband a protest at a downtown marketplace.

Many Haitian schools kept their doors locked and automobile traffic was light, but witnesses said grassroots support for the general strike fizzled as soldiers patrolled tense streets in a show of force.

The strike was called by opponents of Haiti's military- backed government to demand the return of Aristide.

Radio and human rights reports of military and police repression have grown in recent days, but few incidents of beatings and killings could be independently verified.

The heightened repression came one day after the de facto government condemned the Organisation of American States for adopting tougher economic sanctions against Haiti.

The government's plan to establish a consensus government without Aristide drew criticism from OAS diplomats still meeting in the Bahamas.

In the southern town of Leogane, a priest was arrested, stripped and beaten, according to eyewitnesses. Father Philippe Jean Pierre was taken into custody at the local military barracks, they said.

One foreign journalist said he was detained by a military unit as he was driving through a poor neighborhood in the capital city yesterday morning.

Soldiers returned his passport and press card only after the journalist threatened to call the army chief who led the coup against Aristide. -- Reuter.