18892: Haiti-Uprising (later story) (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 said
he's ready to die to defend Haiti, showing determination to keep power
despite a bloody rebellion as the United States and other countries
prepared a political plan to resolve the crisis.
   Secretary of State Colin Powell said the plan could be presented to
Haiti's government and opposition as early as Friday.
   The U.S. government, meanwhile, urged Americans to leave the
increasingly violent country.
   "I am ready to give my life if that is what it takes to defend my
country," Aristide told police officers honoring slain comrades at a
ceremony in Port-au-Prince, the capital.
   "If wars are expensive, peace can be even more expensive," warned
Aristide, who has survived three assassination attempts and a coup d'etat.
   The Pentagon said it was sending a small military team to assess the
security of the embassy and its staff.
   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 six armed men stopped the two vehicles in
Port-au-Prince on Monday night and opened fire the shots, hitting a vehicle
but causing no injuries.
   More than 20,000 U.S. citizens, at least a quarter of them missionaries,
are registered with the U.S. Embassy.
   The Peace Corps is withdrawing about 70 volunteers, and other U.S.
citizens should leave while commercial flights are still available, the
State Department said.
   Six truckloads of armed gangsters drove Thursday night into St. Marc,
west of Port-au-Prince, American missionary Terry Snow said, adding that 15
Americans in his group of 20 missionaries left the country this week.
   "Innocent people are being killed and houses are burned down every day
and night in St. Marc and the police are doing nothing," said Snow, 39,
from Granbury, Texas.
   He said the city has been terrorized by Aristide partisans from the
"Clean Sweep" gang since police won the city back from rebels last week.
   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.
   OAS Secretary-General Cesar Gaviria said he is confident a political
solution could come "not in months, but in weeks."
   U.S. Ambassador John Maisto told delegates that Haiti's crisis "is due
in large part to the failure of the government of Haiti to act in a timely
manner to address problems that it knew were growing." He said it hadn't
fought police corruption, strengthened its judiciary or restored security.
   Meanwhile, 20 Haitian refugees arrived by boat in Jamaica -- the second
group in less than a week -- saying they were fleeing the violence,
Jamaican police said.
   The U.S. Coast Guard has said it has not detected any increase in
Haitian migrants.
   Haiti's rebellion has raised fears of a mass exodus on the scale of the
tens of thousands who fled to Florida when Haiti was under brutal military
dictatorships from 1991 to 1994.
   Former President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to restore
Aristide, end the killings of his supporters and halt the flood of
refugees.
   In Washington, Powell said the plan does not require Aristide to step
down before his term ends in February 2006, as the political opposition and
rebels are demanding.
   But he said the United States would not object if, through negotiation
with opposition leaders, Aristide agreed to leave ahead of schedule.
   A political solution would not halt the northern rebellion that has
killed dozens of people, including about 40 police officers, according to
Jean-Gerard Dubreuil, undersecretary for public security.
   At Cap-Haitien, the last major government bastion in northern Haiti,
armed supporters of Aristide patrolled Thursday and vowed to fight any
rebel attack. Frightened police remained barricaded in their station,
saying they were too few and poorly armed to repel the rebels.
   Rebels torched the police station at the northeastern border post of
Ouanaminthe on Thursday, Radio Vision 2000 reported.
   Haiti's police force numbers less than 4,000 and demoralized officers
this week deserted at least three provincial posts. Eight officers have
sought asylum in Jamaica and the Dominican military said it arrested four
fleeing officers this week.
   Aristide, who was wildly popular when he became Haiti's first freely
elected leader in 1990, has lost support since flawed legislative elections
in 2000 that led international donors to freeze millions of dollars in aid.
   Even before the rebellion, about half of Haiti's 8 million people went
hungry daily, according to aid groups.
   Hungry people in rebel-held Gonaives looted food aid from a rebel
storage facility on Thursday after they were turned away from an aid
distribution. Witnesses said shots were exchanged Wednesday between rebels
and armed residents who thought they were being denied food rations.
   Thousands of people, some brandishing machetes and guns, marched through
the city Thursday in support of the rebellion.
   "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.