19520: (hermantin)Miami-Herald- U.N. to police Haiti (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Mon, Mar. 01, 2004

U.N. to police Haiti

As Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide goes into exile, U.S. Marines
land in Haiti and a U.N. military force is being assembled to patrol the
country.

BY NANCY SAN MARTIN, TRENTON DANIEL AND MARTIN MERZER

mmerzer@herald.com


PORT-AU-PRINCE -- U.S. Marines landed in Haiti's chaotic, bullet-pocked
capital Sunday night, the vanguard of a United Nations peacekeeping force
still being assembled to calm the rebellion that ousted President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide in less than a month.

A transitional government led by Haitian Supreme Court Justice Boniface
Alexandre assumed power, without much initial success.

As word spread of Aristide's resignation and flight to asylum, hundreds of
residents launched a new fusillade of revenge and opportunism, killing
people, looting businesses and torching the homes of Aristide loyalists.

Men identifying themselves as rebels, some dressed in civilian clothing,
others in camouflage, were seen in the capital.

At the end of an extraordinarily eventful day, about 200 Marines in full
combat gear arrived at Port-au-Prince's airport Sunday night, with more to
follow.

They were assigned to secure the airport and seaport, easing the way for
more international troops, the delivery of humanitarian aid and the
repatriation of Haitian migrants, officials said.

''I have ordered the deployment of Marines, as the leading element of an
interim international force, to help bring order and stability to Haiti,''
President Bush said in Washington.

Late Sunday, the U.N. Security Council voted 15-0 to authorize an
international military force to remain in Haiti for three months to restore
order, followed by a more formal U.N. stabilization force.

France, Canada and some Caribbean nations were expected to join the U.S.
Marines in the initial deployment to Haiti. About 200 French troops from
Martinique were expected to arrive today.

Abandoned by the United States and other foreign governments, under pressure
from relentlessly advancing insurgents, Aristide reportedly signed a letter
of resignation before dawn Sunday. Accompanied by his wife, Mildred, and a
black-uniformed security detail, he flew into exile at 6:15 a.m. aboard an
unmarked white airplane.

State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the U.S. ''facilitated''
Aristide's departure. Other administration officials said U.S. Ambassador
James Foley offered Aristide a secure airplane and found a country that
would accept him.

Aristide's destination was to be in the Central African Republic, according
to a senior official of the State Department, possibly after a stop in
Panama.

SECOND OUSTER

It was the second such humiliation for Aristide, who was ousted by a
military coup in 1991 and restored to power in 1994 by 20,000 U.S. troops.

''If my resignation prevents the shedding of blood, I agree to leave,''
Aristide, Haiti's first democratically elected president in 200 years of
independence, wrote Sunday.

It didn't work. A new blast of violence rampaged through a capital already
fractured and impoverished by turmoil.

Angry crowds of Aristide supporters gathered at the presidential National
Palace and roamed elsewhere through Port-au-Prince. Bursts of gunfire
reverberated through the streets. Looters plundered banks, police stations
and supermarkets. Smoke billowed over the capital.

Neighbors said mobs burned down the homes of Aristide loyalists, including
Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and spokesman Mario Dupuy.

Bullet-riddled bodies were seen on city streets. The new death toll could
not be determined, but at least 100 people have died in the rebellion that
began Feb. 5.

Later Sunday, police finally moved into action -- sometimes in association
with rebels -- and the violence subsided.

Alexandre, the new leader and a widely respected figure in Haiti, was sworn
in as head of the transitional government. ''I assume [the office] because
the constitution indicates it,'' Alexandre said during a news conference.

He urged the eight million residents of Haiti to refrain from further
violence.

''The task will not be an easy one,'' he said. ``Haiti is in crisis . .. It
needs all its sons and daughters. No one should take justice into their own
hands.''

RALLYING CRY

In recent weeks, pro-government militants warned foes that, if Aristide
left, they would ''burn down their houses and cut off the heads,'' a
rallying cry that founding father Jean-Jacques Dessalines aimed at the
French 200 years ago.

Samson Candio, a cook at the Radisson Hotel at Biscayne Boulevard in Miami,
became trapped in Haiti following Carnival festivities. On Sunday, he
expressed relief that Aristide was no longer in power.

''Look at my country -- it wasn't like this before,'' said Candio, 50. ``He
gave guns to kids and put together a fake police. If I saw him, I would slap
him.''

Aristide's most outspoken political critics offered few details about their
next step.

''Right now we're in the stage of making sure violence doesn't continue and
that people put down their guns,'' said Andy Apaid, a spokesman for the
political opposition.

U.S. officials, meanwhile, swiftly ordered the Marines into action.

''The mission of the U.S. forces being deployed is to secure key sites in
the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince,'' said Army Col. David McWilliams, a
spokesman for the U.S. Southern Command.

Among their duties: ''Helping to create conditions for the anticipated
arrival of the U.N. multinational force,'' McWilliams said.

Fifty members of a Marine security team moved into the capital last week to
help secure the U.S. Embassy.

JUBILATION

News of Aristide's fall was greeted with glee in the northern city of Cap
Haitien, which fell to the rebels last week. Crowds danced in the streets
there.

Rebel leader Guy Philippe, who conquered Cap Haitien, said he endorsed the
arrival of U.S. and other international troops.

''I think it's a good decision,'' Philippe told CNN. ``The people of Haiti
need it and the country needs it. They will be welcome.''

Philippe moved south to Gonaives on Sunday and said he planned to enter
Port-au-Prince today.

The rebellion quickly forced government forces to abandon most of northern
and central Haiti.

''President Aristide made a decision for the good of the Haitian people,''
Foley, the U.S. ambassador, said during a news conference.

He denied reports that the Bush administration had pressured Aristide to
leave, though the White House has been distancing itself from the Haitian
president for some time -- an effort that grew more intense in recent days.

First elected president in 1990, Aristide was ousted in 1991 by a military
coup but was restored to power three years later. A close associate became
president in 1996 and Aristide won reelection in 2000.

But he came under heavy criticism, with opponents charging that he
authorized violence against opponents, condoned flawed legislative elections
and failed to improve living standards in the hemisphere's poorest nation.

LESS POWER

This time, Aristide was cornered by a rebellion that left him ruling little
more than the capital.

As turmoil continues to sweep the nation, hundreds of Haitians have taken to
the sea, trying to reach Florida and other havens. Most have been picked up
by the U.S. Coast Guard and returned to Haiti.

In Miami, Ira Kurzban, a spokesman for Aristide, said he believed that U.S.
intelligence agencies were involved in the ouster.

He noted that one rebel leader, Louis Jodel Chamblain, was a member of
FRAPH, a notoriously brutal paramilitary group that supported Haiti's
1991-1994 military dictatorship and was later found to have CIA connections.

''This was a major operation by the intelligence agencies of the U.S.,''
Kurzban said. ``Eventually, the truth will come out.''

Back in Haiti, many people worried about the immediate future: Would the
victors and the vanquished find a way to work together or would they engage
in a new round of bloodletting?

''It's not easy to talk about the future in Haiti,'' said Jean Francique,
the parish priest in the cathedral at Gonaives, birth place of the
rebellion.

``But we need soldiers here, from America, to pick up all the guns in the
streets first. Then we can begin again.''

Herald staff writers Susannah A. Nesmith in Gonaives, Frank Davies and
Warren P. Strobel in Washington, Stewart Stogel at the United Nations and
Jacqueline Charles, Andres Oppenheimer, Renato Pérez, Carol Rosenberg and
Juan O. Tamayo in Miami contributed to this report.

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