Haiti’s President Dismisses U.S. Doubts of His Viability

U.S. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell suggested Thursday that Jean-Bertrand Aristide may be unable to “effectively continue” to lead this country. But the defiant Haitian president rejected mounting calls for his resignation despite a looming clash between armed supporters and rebels who have seized more than half of the Caribbean nation’s territory.

Powell’s remarks marked a shift from the Bush administration’s position that Aristide, as an elected leader, should be allowed to serve out his term despite the massive uprising against him.

“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 in Washington.

By nightfall Thursday, this capital city was paralyzed by militant gangs claiming to defend Aristide. They set fire to tires and debris and fired into the air to scare off anyone approaching.

As Haitians hunkered down for what many believed was an imminent attack, diplomats at the United Nations and the Organization of American States debated whether to deploy international troops to restore order.

French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin had made it clear a day earlier that France, the colonial power 200 years ago, wanted Aristide to step down and accept responsibility for the crisis that had led to the deaths of at least 80 Haitians since the rebellion began three weeks ago.

In a rambling interview with CNN, Aristide insisted that he was the elected leader and would serve out the remaining two years of his term.

Warning that “at any time those terrorists could come to Port-au-Prince and kill thousands of people,” Aristide appealed for international troops to put down the rebellion. He said “a few dozen” well-trained police would be sufficient to “send a message to the terrorists,” whom he has repeatedly equated with Al Qaeda and whose actions he has likened to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Aristide sent his two daughters, 5-year-old Christine and 3-year-old Michaelle, to New York on an American Airlines flight Wednesday -- shortly before the airline suspended flights to and from the country. His wife, Haitian American lawyer Mildred Trouillot, was believed to still be in the capital.

Aristide, 50, the first democratically elected leader of Haiti, was deposed in a military coup in 1991, only seven months after his election. He returned to cheering countrymen on the heels of a U.S. invasion three years later but lost support among Haitians when he armed street gangs to harass political rivals and some in his government got involved in the drug trade.

Powell was among those who had great hopes for Aristide when, as an advisor to President Clinton, he helped restore the Haitian leader to power. Like many others, Powell has been disappointed with Aristide’s more recent tenure.

Although the Bush administration has been unhappy with the Haitian president, Powell has refrained from any statement that could be construed as a call for Aristide’s resignation.

But a senior U.S. official acknowledged Thursday that “pressure is now building” for the former priest to give up his post. He said Powell’s comments did not mark the first time the secretary had urged Aristide to consider a departure. He said pressure for Aristide’s resignation was building as countries in the region and around the world become convinced of the need for a political settlement.

The senior official said he did not believe that U.S. officials had begun considering ways to offer Aristide safe haven should he choose to leave Haiti. He acknowledged that other countries might be considering the issue.

Western diplomats said they believed that Powell now shared the French government’s view that Aristide had lost his legitimacy and should resign as part of a settlement.

Diplomats speculated that Western governments might soon consider helping Aristide find refuge abroad. One diplomat speculated that the subject could come up in Paris today, when Aristide’s envoys and representatives of Haitian opposition groups meet with Villepin.

Residents of Port-au-Prince scurried in search of food, fuel and cash, lining up at grocery stores and banks that opened after five days of less-than-festive Carnival holidays ending Tuesday. To maintain order, guards let in a few customers at a time.

Many businesses were closed, with metal grilles padlocked over doors and windows. At the few bank branches that were open, customers were turned away after 11 a.m. and told to come back today.

“Everyone is at home, waiting,” said a fearful private school director who did not want to give her name.

Schools have been shuttered since before Carnival and many shop owners, fearing vandalism by the roving gangs, remained closed.

Gas stations ran out of diesel fuel Wednesday, and long lines formed at pumps that still had gasoline. At hotels teeming with foreign journalists and relief workers -- about the only remaining visitors to Haiti -- management warned of impending electricity and water shortages, urging guests to conserve and accept reduced service.

Rebel leader Guy Philippe, the former army officer who was directing the rebels’ campaign from Cap Haitien -- the country’s second-largest city, which fell to the insurgents Sunday -- demanded that Aristide step down or face arrest by rebels.

“The attack is imminent, and I ask the population to stay home when we attack Port-au-Prince,” Philippe told Radio Vision 2000 in a broadcast aired in the capital before dawn Thursday. “I advise President Aristide to leave the National Palace immediately. We will attack shortly at the National Palace and capture him.”

The rebel leader also urged university students, who had planned a demonstration Thursday morning, to stay home, said student Berny Leveque, who had planned to protest. Philippe told a student leader he planned to be in the capital soon and didn’t want his followers to mistake the anti-Aristide youths for pro-government gangsters operating roadblocks throughout the city.

The first signs of rebellion in Haiti’s south appeared Thursday when a group once loyal to Aristide attacked and set fire to the police station in Les Cayes, Radio Metropole reported.

Scenes of panic ensued at the capital’s airport and at diplomatic compounds where foreigners were awaiting evacuation. Armed with M-16 rifles, U.S. Marines, who had arrived Monday, escorted United Nations personnel to the airport in the morning after their departure was called off a day earlier because armed pro-Aristide gangs blocked access roads.

Haitians, too, have begun fleeing, but in numbers far below the volume of refugees who took to the seas during the 1991-94 reign of the junta that displaced Aristide and brutally repressed his supporters.

A U.S. Coast Guard spokesman in Miami said about a dozen small vessels had been seized in the last week and about 500 Haitians had been taken aboard cutters. Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president’s brother, insisted that they would be repatriated because they were unlikely to meet the conditions for political asylum.

At the U.N. Security Council in New York, Caribbean countries called for immediately sending a multinational force to Haiti to restore order, with Jamaica’s foreign minister warning that a humanitarian crisis as well as “sheer anarchy and chaos” were imminent. Representing the Caribbean Community nations, Foreign Minister K. D. Knight said “direct and immediate intervention” was necessary to preserve democracy and prevent a deepening of the crisis.

The United States and France, while acknowledging the quickly deteriorating situation, said a political solution must come first. Haitian opposition leaders have rejected a power-sharing proposal put forward by the Caribbean Community regional organization and backed by the State Department. Aristide’s rivals say he has been the catalyst of the current crisis and will not be accepted by Haitians as a facilitator of its resolution.

To back up any agreement forged in Paris, France has proposed sending several hundred international police to Haiti.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed a special envoy for Haiti, John Reginald Dumas from Trinidad and Tobago. He will help mediation efforts and the coordination of humanitarian aid.

Washington’s U.N. envoy, John D. Negroponte, echoed the French government’s call for a quick and peaceful outcome.

“It is imperative that such a solution be reached quickly before a serious humanitarian crisis emerges,” he said. “The Haitian people have already suffered a great deal in extreme poverty and precarious living conditions, and yet they face the real prospect of an even greater calamity.”

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Times staff writer Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.