18873: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By MICHAEL NORTON

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 19 (AP) -- President Jean-Bertrand Aristide declared
Thursday he is ready to die to defend his country against a bloody
rebellion, indicating he plans to cling to power. The U.S. government,
citing continued violence, urged Americans to leave Haiti.
   Aristide's defiance and Washington's warning came as the United States
and other countries were preparing a political plan to resolve the crisis.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said the plan could be presented to Haitian
government and opposition leaders as early as Friday.
   The Pentagon said it was sending a small military team to assess the
security of the U.S. Embassy and its staff in the Caribbean country.
   The announcement came as an unconfirmed report surfaced that two embassy
vehicles were fired on earlier in the week. An American in Haiti who spoke
on condition of anonymity said that six armed men stopped the two vehicles
in Port-au-Prince on Monday night and fired the shots, hitting a vehicle
but causing no injuries.
   The last major government bastion in northern Haiti was Cap-Haitien,
where armed supporters of Aristide patrolled the city Thursday, vowing to
fight any rebel attempt to seize control. Frightened police remained
barricaded in their station, saying they were too few and poorly armed to
repel any attack.
   "I am ready to give my life if that is what it takes to defend my
country," Aristide told stony-faced police officers honoring slain comrades
at a ceremony in Port-au-Prince, the capital in the south.
   "If wars are expensive, peace can be even more expensive," warned
Aristide, who has survived three assassination attempts and a coup.
   Amid the chaos, the United States urged Americans to leaves Haiti. More
than 20,000 Americans, at least a quarter of them missionaries, are
registered with the U.S. Embassy.
   Peace Corps personnel were being withdrawn, and other U.S. citizens
should leave while commercial transportation is still available, the State
Department said.
   "American citizens should be aware that the U.S. Embassy has prohibited
travel by its staff outside of Port-au-Prince," the warning said.
   It said the embassy's ability to provide emergency services to citizens
outside the capital was limited and had "drastically decreased in recent
days due to numerous random roadblocks set up by armed groups."
   In Washington, Powell said the emerging political plan does not
contemplate Aristide's stepping down before his term ends in February 2006,
as Haiti's political opposition and rebels are demanding. But he said the
United States would not object if, as part of a negotiation with opposition
leaders, Aristide agreed to leave ahead of schedule.
   "I think if they will both accept this plan and start executing on it,
we might find a way through this crisis politically," Powell told ABC
Radio's "Live in America."
   But the plan does not address how to end the northern rebellion, which
has killed dozens of people. Among the dead are about 40 police officers,
according to Jean-Gerard Dubreuil, Haiti's undersecretary for public
security.
   Powell said the international community must do what it can to help
Aristide in his capacity as Haiti's elected leader. But many countries,
including the United States, have accused Aristide of using police and
militant supporters to stifle opposition.
   The Organization of American States approved a resolution Thursday
expressing "firm support" for Aristide's government in its efforts to
"restore public order by constitutional means." It also called for an
immediate end to the violence.
   The uprising, which began Feb. 5, is led by a gang that says it was
armed by Aristide to terrorize his opponents in Gonaives, a rebel-held city
and the country's fourth-largest, northwest of Port-au-Prince. Its members
turned on Haiti's leader after gang leader Amiot Metayer was killed in
September, saying he was silenced to stop him spreading damaging
information about Aristide. Aristide denies any connection to the gang.
   On Thursday, armed men attacked the police station at Ouanaminthe, on
Haiti's northeast border with the Dominican Republic, and torched the
building, Radio Vision 2000 reported. It did not say if there were
casualties.
   The rebels were joined this week by a sinister group of former soldiers
and a death squad leader from the Haitian army that ousted Aristide in
1991. Aristide disbanded the army after he was restored to power in by a
U.S. invasion in 1994.
   Aristide got to serve only two years of his first term of office,
shortchanged by U.S. insistence that he could not recoup three years lost
in exile and had to respect a constitutional term limit.
   Instead, he handpicked his successor, and was largely seen as the power
behind the scenes until his return in 2000 through presidential elections
marred by a low voter turnout and an opposition boycott.
   He has lost much support since flawed legislative elections that year
led international donors to freeze aid, preventing him from fulfilling an
election promise to improve life for Haiti's 8 million people.
   Even before the rebellion, half Haiti's people went hungry daily,
according to aid organizations that warn of a looming humanitarian crisis.
   Hungry people in Gonaives looted food aid from a rebel storage facility
after being turned away from an aid distribution compound. Witnesses said
shots were exchanged Wednesday between armed rebels and armed residents,
when the residents thought they were being denied food rations.
   Thousands marched through Gonaives to show support for the rebels
Thursday, some brandishing machetes and guns.
   "We are going to win. We are going to take the (National) Palace," Guy
Philippe, a rebel leader and former police chief of Cap-Haitien, told
Associated Press Television News.
   Two U.N. teams flew to northern Haiti Thursday to assess humanitarian
needs.
   Meanwhile, 20 Haitian refugees arrived by boat in Jamaica on Thursday,
the second group in less than a week. The U.S. Coast Guard has said it is
monitoring the situation but has not detected any increase in Haitian boat
people.
   U.S. officials have said they see no signs so far of widespread
boat-building on the north coast, something that presumably would be
required before any large refugee exodus from Haiti.