19393: (Craig) NYT: Rebels Nearing Haitian Capital, Deepening Panic (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: Dan Craig <hoosier@att.net>


Rebels Nearing Haitian Capital, Deepening Panic
February 28, 2004
By LYDIA POLGREEN and CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 27 - With panic rising across
Haiti's capital and rebels within 25 miles of the city, the
Bush administration said Friday that it was still pursuing
a diplomatic resolution. Even so, the Pentagon was drawing
up plans for possible intervention by the Marines.

"We're interested in achieving a political settlement and
we're still working to that effect," President Bush said
after a meeting with the German chancellor, Gerhard
Schr?der. "We're also at the same time planning for a
multinational force" to provide stability in the event of a
political settlement.

Mr. Bush reiterated the administration's position on
Haiti's president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which was
spelled out Thursday by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell:
that he should "examine his position carefully."

Richard A. Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said
the administration was in "very close touch" with the
French government, which has called for Mr. Aristide to
resign and has offered to take part in a multinational
effort to stabilize Haiti.

The American Embassy in Port-au-Prince released a statement
on Friday evening calling for Mr. Aristide to stop "the
blind violence" wracking the city.

Among the possibilities the Pentagon is considering,
Defense Department officials and military officers said, is
to send a force of 2,200 Marines from Camp Lejeune, N.C.,
aboard Navy ships from Norfolk, Va., to take up positions
off Haiti. But they said such a deployment, similar to what
was done to stabilize Liberia last year, could take several
days to organize.

In the gathering chaos in Port-au-Prince, no one could say
for sure if that would be soon enough.

Truckloads of armed men, many in ski masks, patrolled the
city on Friday, vowing to kill anyone who challenged Mr.
Aristide's presidency. Looters pillaged warehouses at the
port, and at least four people were killed in violence
sweeping through the city. The bloodshed was set off by
rumors that rebel soldiers would soon march in to remove
Mr. Aristide by force.

Insurgents have already seized several large cities, and
some moved Friday into Les Cayes, the nation's fourth
largest town, The Associated Press reported. Rebel troops
also took control of Mirebalais, an important crossroads
town 25 miles northeast of the capital, The A.P. reported.

A rebel leader, Guy Philippe, told reporters that his plan
was not to attack the capital immediately but rather to put
it under siege. "We want to block Port-au-Prince totally,"
The A.P. quoted him as saying. "Port-au-Prince now, it
would be very hard to take it. It would be a lot of fight,
a lot of death."

With shouts of "Viv Titid!" - Titid is a Creole diminutive
of Aristide - armed troops loyal to the president and his
party, Lavalas, vowed to stop the rebel advance,
brandishing M-16 rifles and semiautomatic handguns at
barricades of flaming tires.

The port was a mad scene of looting, with thousands of
people streaming into a narrow entrance that had been pried
open. Just outside the gate lay the body a man killed
earlier in the day, dressed in a pink shirt and black
pants, a stream of blood congealing next to his head.

Poup?, a 7-year-old boy, came running out through the gate
with all the booty he could carry - two bags of strawberry
lollipops and an automobile air filter. "I am going to sell
them," he said, holding the bags of candy aloft. "Maybe I
will eat some, too."

Residents of La Saline, a seaside slum next to the port,
helped themselves to all manner of goods - boxes of
Brazilian pastries, calculators, packages of sanitary
napkins, even second-hand mattresses.

"These people have no choice but to do this," said Tassy
Frantzy, 36, a telephone company worker who lives in La
Saline. He stood watching the frenzy but did not join in.
"People hear false rumors and they panic. They think
Aristide is running away. But he will never run away."

In the Nauzon neighborhood, Ronald Dacayet was drinking his
morning coffee at his house at 6 a.m. when he heard
gunshots just outside his gate. When he ran outside, he saw
two men on the sidewalk, both bleeding from the head. One
man's hands were bound by plastic ties, and rivulets of
blood streamed from their wounds.

"Every day we hear gunshots," Mr. Dacayet said. "This is
how we live now," he said, gesturing to the dead men
splayed on the sidewalk. He said he had never seen the men
before.

Other witnesses said the two men had been captured by
Lavalas militants and executed on suspicion of cooperating
with the rebels. Rebel leaders have said they have
operatives awaiting orders in Port-au-Prince.

The body of another man killed Friday lay on a commercial
thoroughfare downtown, his legs spread and his genitals cut
off.

At a coast guard pier in Carrefour, on the edge of the
city, officers deposited boatloads of people who had been
picked up by United States Coast Guard cutters as they
tried to flee to the United States.

Dupiton Jean-Fran?ois, an inspector at the depot, said 537
people were being repatriated, a sharp increase from the
usual flow.

Luis Diaz, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, said 531
Haitians were carried aboard Coast Guard cutters to
Port-au-Prince. None were deemed to be eligible for refugee
status, he said. Advocacy groups for immigrants have
sharply criticized the Bush administration for returning
people to Haiti's political turmoil.

Osner Sainta boarded a boat on Feb. 17 with his wife and
two children in their hometown, Mirago?ne, headed for
Miami. But their vessel, which carried 102 people, was
intercepted before they even got away from the coast, near
M?le-St.-Nicolas, at Haiti's northwestern tip.

Gripping two toothbrushes that were given to her by Coast
Guard officers and cradling her yearold son, Jefferson, in
her lap, Mr. Sainta's wife, Larose, spoke bitterly of their
failed attempt to escape as their country descends into
chaos.

"We did not even get close," she said. "There are too many
problems here. We have to go away. We have no money to eat.
We paid for our children's school, but now the schools are
closed. We have to go to America."

As the family sat on a low wall, wondering how they would
scratch together bus fare back to Mirago?ne, Mr. Sainta
vowed to try again as soon as possible, saying, "We will be
back on the next boat."

In Washington, three Democratic senators who played a
prominent role in the 1994 intervention in Haiti - which
restored Mr. Aristide to power - called for the immediate
dispatch of a security force to Haiti to avert a tragedy.

"One way or another, the United States is going to have to
get involved to resolve this mess," said Senator
Christopher J. Dodd, who joined Senators Tom Harkin of Iowa
and Bob Graham of Florida in urging the Bush administration
to act. "We can do it sooner - and minimize the loss of
life and property destruction - or we can do it later."

Lydia Polgreen reported from Port-au-Prince for this
article and Christopher Marquis from Washington. Rachel L.
Swarns contributed reporting from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/28/international/americas/28HAIT.html?ex=1078950628&ei=1&en=de3cdc796b8db9d0
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company