PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad (AP) _ Looters hauled away carloads of television sets and other appliances while vigilante squads guarded some homes Sunday during the chaos of an armed uprising by Moslem extremists. Fires broke out in several parts of the capital, Port-of-Spain, and a thick cloud of acrid smoke hung over the city. A government-imposed curfew took effect in mid-afternoon, and the streets were deserted _ except for looters. ``Everybody is trying to secure themselves because people don't know what's going to happen,'' said Trinidanian Ian Mckenzie, who was watching looters on the outskirts of Port-of-Spain. ``We don't want our country this way. We are a democratic country.'' In middle-class and upper-class neighborhoods, residents banded together to stave off attacks. Several homes in the Westmoorings suburb, about six miles northwest of the capital, were ransacked, and residents fenced off the area to keep intruders away. A witness said he said two men _ armed with 12-gauge shotguns and a .38-caliber revolver _ trying to shoot open a large safe by the side of a road. Widespread looting broke out along the Churchill-Roosevelt highway, the main artery between the airport and the capital. People pulled their cars up to warehouses and filled them with refrigerators, televisions and radios. Supermarkets, pharmacies, clothing, hardware and appliance stores were systematically stripped by convoys of vehicles. Looting also spread outside the capital to the villages of Barataria, San Juan, Mount Hope and El Socorro. Anglican Bishop Clive Abdullah broadcast an appeal over government-run radio for looters to stop. ``My heart goes out to those who are hungry and have to enter places to take foodstuffs. I can perhaps ask God's forgiveness for this,'' he said. ``But when you line up a convoy of vehicles to take away items like refrigerators, television sets and videos, that is not right.'' Army and police patrolled downtown Port-of-Spain around the Parliament building, known as Red House, where Prime Minister Arthur Robinson was being held hostage by black Moslem rebels. But in many parts of the city, no police were visible. Some people kept an eye out for police while friends looted stores. On Saturday, a witness in the Picadilly area of eastern Port-of-Spain said about 50 policemen fired shots into the air to stop the looters. But people ignored them and continued to plunder stores.
