19282: (Chamberlain) Haiti rebels warn of imminent attack on capital (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     By Alistair Scrutton and Jim Loney

     PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb 26 (Reuters) - Rebels battling to oust
Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide warned on Thursday an attack on
the capital was imminent as heavily armed U.S. security forces helped
foreigners fleeing the country.
     Rebel boss Guy Philippe, leading a band of ex-soldiers and gang
members against the priest-turned-politician, said his men had surrounded
Port-au-Prince.
     "Everyone is killing innocent people so we cannot stand by and watch
Aristide do this. So that is why we gave orders to surround
Port-au-Prince," Philippe told Reuters in the rebel stronghold in Cap
Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city that was taken by the rebels last
weekend.
     "Our guys are there and waiting for orders to attack," said Philippe,
a former police chief. He said he wants to be in Port-au-Prince by Sunday
to celebrate his 36th birthday.
     American Airlines said it was suspending its five daily U.S. flights
to Haiti because employees were having difficulty getting to the airport,
and the airline's last flight out of Port-au-Prince left on Thursday
afternoon.
     Aristide on Thursday repeated a vow to stay in office until 2006 when
his term ends, setting the stage for a showdown in the teeming Haitian
capital between the motley band of heavily armed rebels and the president,
his supporters and his ill-trained, 4,000-member national police force.
     More than 60 people have died in the Caribbean country in clashes that
began on Feb. 5 when the rebels started the revolt by overrunning the
western city of Gonaives.
     Caribbean countries called on the United Nations on Thursday to
approve the urgent deployment of an international force to restore order in
Haiti. The Security Council signaled in advance it was not yet ready for
such a move.
     A negotiated end to the conflict seems distant. Opposition political
groups, who distance themselves from the rebels, insist Aristide must quit,
throwing a wrench in U.S.-backed efforts to end the conflict with a
power-sharing accord.
     In Port-au-Prince, a convoy of buses with diplomatic families, charity
workers and a Haitian orphan on the way to a new family in Spain sped out
of a U.N. compound. Wives and children wept as they waved goodbye to
husbands and fathers.
     "It's not an easy country right now," U.N. worker Francois Handfield,
a Canadian citizen, said before he boarded a bus. "It's going to blow up
one day, that's for sure."
     Special forces from a U.S. diplomatic protection unit were helping
foreigners leave.
     Barricades littered garbage-strewn streets in Port-au-Prince before
the expected attack by the rebels, who accuse Aristide of being a corrupt
thug. Fewer pro-Aristide gangs roamed the streets than a day earlier, when
motorists were shaken down for money and cellphones at the roadblocks.
     Schools were closed and shops were shuttered as many people stayed
home. Some foreigners and Haitians crammed the airport to flee, fearing
commercial flights to and from the country could soon be suspended.
     Aristide disbanded the army in 1994 when he returned to office, backed
by an invasion of 20,000 U.S. troops, after being ousted in a 1991 military
coup. So far police resistance has melted away in the face of attacks by
rebels, who are often welcomed by inhabitants.
     Former colonial power France has proposed setting up an international
police force to restore order, which would support a government of national
unity. A Haitian government team, led by Foreign Minister Joseph Philippe
Antonio, arrived in Paris on Thursday for talks with French officials.
     U.S. President George W. Bush has also said the deteriorating
situation in Haiti may require an international security presence, once a
political deal is reached.
     Philippe said the rebels "gave a chance for peace" but Aristide had
refused to leave, making an attack imminent.
     "We can't wait any more to free the people in Port-au-Prince," he
said.
     Interviewed on CNN, Aristide said he would serve out his term and
again called for international help. Asked how many international
peacekeepers it would take to restore order, he said: "If we had a couple
of dozen ... it could be enough to send a positive signal to the
terrorists."
     Aristide warned on Tuesday that a rebel advance on the capital could
result in a bloodbath and that Haitians could take to the sea. Tens of
thousands of Haitians fled political turmoil in boats and tried to reach
Florida in the 1990s.
     The U.S. Coast Guard said it was holding some 500 Haitian migrants on
cutters in the Windward Pass northwest of Haiti.
     Aristide became Haiti's first freely elected leader in 1991 and was
elected to a second term in 2000. His political foes accuse him of human
rights violations and corruption.

     (Additional reporting by Laurent Hamida)