19280: (Chamberlain) Haiti-Uprising (later story) (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

   By PAISLEY DODDS

   PORT-AU-PRINCE, Feb 26 (AP) -- Haiti's rebel leader said his fighters
were advancing on the capital Thursday and awaited an order to attack
unless President Jean-Bertrand Aristide resigns. The United States
questioned whether Aristide could "effectively continue" in office.
   With Haiti's ill-equipped police force not expected to put up much
resistence against a rebel assault, goverment loyalists threatening death
and torchings began building defenses in front of the National Palace in
Port-au-Prince.
   At a U.N. Security Council meeting on Haiti, Caribbean nations urged the
immediate authorization of a multinational force to end the violence and
restore law and order. But key council members the United States and France
said they want a political settlement first.
   In Washington, Secretary of State Colin Powell openly questioned whether
Aristide can continue to serve effectively as Haiti's leader -- the closest
Powell has come to suggesting that Aristide bow out as president before his
elected term ends in February 20006.
   "Whether or not he is able to effectively continue as president is
something he will have to examine carefully in the interests of the Haitian
people," Powell told reporters.
   Powell's comments came a day after French Foreign Minister Dominique de
Villepin condemned Aristide for Haiti's crisis and called for him to
resign.
   Earlier Thursday, Aristide told CNN he would not resign. He said a small
international force -- "a couple of dozen" soldiers or police -- could
prompt the rebels to stand down. Referring to the rebels, he said: "At any
time those terrorists may come to Port-au-Prince and kill thousands of
people."
   The insurgents have overrun half of the country since the rebellion
began three weeks ago.
   Hundreds of Aristide supporters, some armed with machetes and pistols,
gathered Thursday in front of the National Palace and, with teenagers
driving bulldozers and forklifts, started building a defensive rampart.
   "If Aristide goes, cut off their heads and burn down their houses!" they
shouted, echoing the war cry of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the Haitian
general who ousted French colonizers from Haiti to end slavery 200 years
ago. The Aristide loyalists shouted epithets against France.
   As rumors spread that the rebels were arriving by boat, truckloads of
Aristide supporters armed with old pistols were seen heading toward the
seaside Carrefour neighborhood.
   In Carrefour, gunmen fired shots at the home of Haiti's most prominent
architect, Albert Mangones, and wounded a security guard, a family member
said. The French Embassy was calling the police to try to evacuate
Mangones' widow, an elderly French citizen, and their daughter.
   Rebel leader Guy Philippe said the pro-Aristide militants, called
chimeres or angry young men, were not his enemies.
   "We are calling for everybody to stay home, not to fight against us
because we are fighting for them," Philippe said in an interview with The
Associated Press in the northern city of Cap-Haitien.
   "All those chimeres, we have nothing against them," he said. "We know
Mr. Aristide gave them some money and we know how poor they are."
   Some 90 miles to the south, Port-au-Prince was a city on edge.
   Americans with M-16s guarded U.N. workers and their families on the way
to the airport, passing street barricades of wrecked, abandoned cars, rock
and tires built by Aristide supporters to block the city from an assault.
   Military helicopters of the Dominican Republic, which shares the island
of Hispaniola with Haiti, were ferrying people from the Dominican Embassy
to the airport.
   The international airport was packed, mostly with Haitian-Americans
trying to return to the United States.
   "Anyone is going to want to save his own skin. It's a state of fear,"
said a 34-year-old Haitian who lives in New York and didn't want to give
his name.
   Later Thursday, American Airlines canceled its flights between Haiti and
the United States until March 3, saying "disturbances" were making it
increasingly difficult for employees to reach the airport.
   The capital was mainly calm in the morning, a day after sporadic looting
erupted, but more and more barricades, some of burning tires, were set by
Aristide supporters later in the day. At the roadblocks, people were being
robbed. Businesses were shuttered, long lines formed at the few open banks
and gas stations, and streets were mostly devoid of people.
   Aristide, a former priest of Haiti's slums who in 1990 became Haiti's
first freely elected leader, has lost popularity amid accusations he
condoned corruption, failed to help the poor and had thugs attack and
intimidate political opponents.
   But he still retained loyalty among some Haitians, including Jacques
Moise, one of those waiting to withdraw cash at the Soge Bank in
Port-au-Prince.
   "I wish Aristide and the opposition could get together, because for me
Aristide had a great vision," Moise said. "I'm afraid all the things he did
are going to be destroyed," he said of education programs for street kids
and medical clinics for the poor.
   One member of an opposition coalition, which denies links with the
rebels but shares their insistence that Aristide must go, predicted
Aristide would soon fall.
   "The day of deliverance has come. Aristide's departure is imminent,"
opposition politician Claire Lydie Parent said on the radio.
   The Rev. Jesse Jackson, visiting Libya, urged the Bush administration to
protect Aristide.
   "Unless something happens immediately, the president could be killed in
our own hemisphere," Jackson said in Tripoli.
   The Organization of American States held a special meeting to discuss
the crisis. Aristide's foreign minister and chief of staff were in Paris to
meet with de Villepin.
   Powell said the United States is willing to participate in any
international force sent to Haiti to enforce a political settlement. He
said France, Canada and Caribbean countries also have indicated willingness
to participate.
   But at an open meeting of the U.N. Security Council, Jamaica's Foreign
Minister K.D. Knight argued against waiting for a political solution.
   "The situation is one of utmost urgency and the need for decisive action
is paramount," Knight said.
   Haitians were fleeing their country in boats, but U.S. authorities said
the numbers were relatively small and expressed no alarm. The U.S. Coast
Guard intercepted a dozen small boats carrying 546 Haitians near the
Haitian coast this week, Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz said.
   Philippe, the rebel leader, would not say if an attack on the capital
was imminent.
   "We're just going to take our positions and wait for the right time.
They're awaiting the order," he said in Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest
city, which fell to the rebels with little resistance on Sunday.
   Philippe said the rebels already have sleeper cells in the capital but
that they would be reinforced by fighters moving in from variety of
locations.
   There were no independent eyewitness reports of rebel movement, but
there also appeared to be few fighters in Cap-Haitien, where hundreds were
seen Wednesday. Cap-Haitien is just 90 miles north of Port-au-Prince, but
it is a seven-hour drive over badly potholed roads.
   ------
   Associated Press writers Michael Norton and Mark Stevenson in
Port-au-Prince and George Gedda in Washington contributed to this report.