19374: (Chamberlain) Haiti's Aristide says U.S. should defend democracy (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Greg Chamberlain <GregChamberlain@compuserve.com>

     MIAMI, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide
said on Friday the United States should defend democracy in his
impoverished Caribbean country, and spearhead a deployment of foreign
police to counter an armed revolt.
     Reiterating once again that he had no intention of standing down in
the face of an advance by armed rebels, Aristide told CNN that Washington
should also increase its patrols in Haitian waters.
     "I think (U.S.) President (George W.) Bush sent troops to Afghanistan.
He has democracy to defend in the United States. Here we want to defend
democracy. We have a common ground," said Aristide, speaking from the
capital, Port-au-Prince, that rebels have threatened to move in on in the
coming days.
     "If he can help us to have international police right now in Haiti,
increasing the number of those international police who are already in
Haiti, that can be a good signal towards those criminals."
     Aristide denounced his political opposition for failing to agree to an
international peace plan, and thus supporting the rebels who now control
half the country. Washington has ruled out taking part in a peace-keeping
force until Aristide and his political foes reach some sort of deal.
     Many of the rebels are former soldiers or militia leaders affiliated
to bloody former military dictatorships, and Aristide said that to allow
them to march into Port-au-Prince would result in "thousands and thousands"
of deaths.
     "You call them rebels. I call them by their names. They are killers,
they are convicted killers. They are terrorists," he said in the CNN
interview.
     The president, a diminutive former slum priest who championed Haitian
democracy when first elected in 1990 but who now faces accusations of
corruption and political repression, said the United States could do more
to patrol Haitian waters.
     Washington and Haiti signed an agreement in 1997 to fight
drug-smuggling by allowing U.S. vessels to enter Haitian territorial
waters.
     "Right now we can do more based on that agreement because we are
dealing, we are facing drug dealers," Aristide said.