19033: (Chamberlain) US sends Marines to protect Haiti embassy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Saul Hudson

     WASHINGTON, Feb 23 (Reuters) - The United States is sending about 50
Marines to Haiti to protect its embassy in the Caribbean nation where an
armed revolt to unseat the president has intensified, a U.S. official said
on Monday.
     At the weekend, as armed rebels took control of the second largest
city and vowed to move on the rest of the country, the United States
evacuated its non-emergency staff and family members from the embassy.
     The decision to send in the Marines also came after a small military
team assessed security at the embassy, which has diplomats mediating
between President Jean Bertrand-Aristide and the opposition, the U.S.
official, who asked not to be named, said.
     "They are to enhance security. I think it's prudent planning," another
official, a State Department diplomat, said.
     A U.S. invasion a decade ago restored Aristide to power after a coup
that prompted waves of refugees to flee to Florida from the most
impoverished nation in the Americas.
     But now, with deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan stretching its
forces, the United States has been reluctant to send troops into the
spreading chaos.
     It has so far rejected Aristide's pleas for reinforcements for his
hapless police force, which has repeatedly lost battles in fighting this
month that has effectively cut the country in two.
     State Department officials said that for now there was no plan to
evacuate its remaining diplomats, who needed to keep mediating --
especially after Aristide pledged at the weekend to accept the opposition
taking posts in a new Cabinet.
     "I cannot remember the last time we completely got everybody out.
Things can go to hell in a hen basket and we still keep some people in,"
one official said. "There's a ladder of escalation, and we are many steps
away from ferrying people out in helicopters."
     Criticized for its slow response to the surging crisis this month, the
Bush administration says its strategy is to hammer out a peace accord
between the opposition and Aristide in the hope it will defuse the
violence.
     That would avert either foreign troops having to be sent in to restore
order or a civil war that could spark a fresh exodus of refugees.
     The opposition has so far rejected the peace plan accepted by
Aristide, which a U.S.-led diplomatic mission proposed to both sides on
Saturday. The parties are finally deciding on Monday whether to accept the
plan.
      Even if an accord is struck, it would not take into account the armed
groups that have swept across the country and threatened to overrun the
capital.
     "It is essential that there be a peaceful political solution to the
situation in Haiti and that's where our efforts remain focused at this
point," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.