18862: (Chamberlain) US to send military team to assess Haiti security (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Saul Hudson and Will Dunham

     WASHINGTON, Feb 19 (Reuters) - The United States said on Thursday it
would send a small military team to assess security at the American Embassy
in Haiti amid political violence in the country and was open to President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide stepping down.
     U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Aristide could go if his
quitting was part of a political settlement among Haitians amid an armed
revolt that threatens Aristide, who the United States a decade ago restored
to power after a coup.
     A military team of three or four people from U.S. Southern Command,
based in Miami, is due to travel to Haiti within 48 hours at the request of
U.S. Ambassador James Foley, said chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di
Rita.
     The United States also said it had withdrawn Peace Corps personnel
attached to the Embassy and imposed a night curfew on staff remaining in
Haiti.
     "Due to the continued unrest and a steady deterioration of the
security situation in Haiti, including violent confrontations between pro-
and anti-government forces, the U.S. Embassy has further reduced its
presence in Haiti," the State Department said in a statement.
     Navy Petty Officer Christopher Sherwood, a spokesman for Southern
Command, said the U.S. team is "going down there to help advise and assist
with security issues" relating to the U.S. Embassy. He did not say how long
the team would stay.
     "They are not there to assist the Haitian government in any form.
They're there only to assist the American ambassador and security issues
for the ambassador and his people (embassy staff)," Sherwood said.
     Sherwood said the team would probably examine contingency plans for
evacuation of the embassy if the situation warrants.
     Asked if a U.S.-backed plan to hammer out a political settlement would
include Aristide leaving office, Powell said: "That's not an element of the
plan because under the constitution, he is the president for some time to
come yet."
     But he added in a radio interview with ABC, "You know, if an agreement
is reached that moves that in another direction, that's fine."
     Previously, senior U.S. officials had only hinted that "major changes"
in the government could break the impasse between an elected leader, who
has vowed to stay until his term ends in 2006, and an increasingly violent
opposition.
     The United States has been criticized for failing to act while armed
rebel gangs battle a hapless police force for control of some towns in the
poorest nation in the Americas.
     The United States has warned the opposition against trying to oust the
former Roman Catholic priest.
     The United States also has been critical of Aristide, pressuring him
to make good on pledges to mediators that include disarming violent gangs,
and it has rejected the government's pleas for police help to staunch the
violence.
     Nations such as Canada and France have offered to send police to
Haiti, but Powell said the plan was for such reinforcements to go only
after a political settlement.
     "In many cases, it's just a few thugs that are dominating a particular
town or city, and so what we have to try to do now is stand with President
Aristide -- he is the elected President of Haiti -- and do what we can to
help him," Powell said.