In Lawless Capital, Haitians Hail Rebels

Vowing to bring order to this lawless capital, gun-toting rebels who forced former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to flee arrived Monday in a convoy of battered pickups and took a noisy victory lap around police stations and the presidential palace.

“Guy Philippe is here!” jubilant youths chanted as thousands danced and celebrated in the park in front of the National Palace, paying tribute to the insurgent leader and his ragtag band of a few dozen camouflage-clad gunmen. It was the first time in years many of those who opposed Aristide had dared approach the seat of power, a whitewashed colonial mansion now patrolled by a handful of U.S. Marines.

A former police chief in Cap Haitien and a suspect in previous coup plots, the diminutive Philippe and his self-styled liberation front spent the day taking their bows among grateful Aristide opponents. Over the weekend, armed and angry street kids had thronged the government quarter, saying they would defend Aristide.

On his rounds of the main police stations and at a meeting with opposition leaders at a posh hillside hotel, Philippe sought to persuade businessmen and activists from mainstream political parties to support his plans to restore order. With no army or reliable police force, some rebels said they had begun shooting looters.

About 200 U.S. Marines have arrived, as have French and Canadian contingents, the vanguard of a multinational force whose mission is to restore the rule of law while diplomats broker a plan for a transitional government.

U.S. Ambassador James Foley and Caribbean Community diplomats met with government and opposition politicians to discuss next steps. No progress was reported.

“It’s a power vacuum. There’s no one to call the shots, and there’s an absolute breakdown of law and order,” said Colin Granderson, one of the Caribbean Community negotiators.

“All of that could have been avoided,” he said Sunday. “If the opposition had agreed, if the international community had acted immediately, if Aristide could have arranged his departure to coincide with a stabilization force, we could have avoided this anarchy.”

The interim president, former Supreme Court chief justice Boniface Alexandre, has made little in the way of public appearance since being sworn in after Aristide departed Sunday.

The rubble-strewn capital remained tense, besieged by looters and vandals. Some were former supporters of Aristide angered over his ouster; others were just desperate to get their hands on any booty.

“Aristide is gone, but his repressive machine is still here. His corrupted police are here. His prime minister is here,” said one of Philippe’s fighters, a cocky, U.S.-educated tough in a Ferrari ball cap and designer sunglasses whose nom de guerre is Faustin. “Aristide left a lot of weapons with the chimeres [pro-Aristide gangs], and I think he left an agenda with them to burn, loot and kill people.”

Faustin said he had spent the previous night shooting at looters and chimeres with his M-4 assault rifle.

Among the buildings looted was Aristide’s home in the suburb of Tabarre. Pictures, documents and a grand piano were dragged out onto the courtyard of the three-story villa, then abandoned. Family and school pictures lay among the disorder.

Philippe and Louis Jodel Chamblain, a former death-squad commander from the era of dictatorship that preceded Aristide, met with remnants of the national police force to offer armed backing in restoring order. Flak-jacketed comrades swaggered around the pool and gardens of the posh El Rancho Hotel while their leader conducted his negotiations.

“I don’t want power,” said Philippe, swarmed by cameramen. But, asked whether he wanted to reestablish the army, once one of the country’s most powerful forces until Aristide disbanded it in 1995, the boyish insurgent replied: “We are the army.”

There was a growing enthusiasm among businessmen to use the rebels as a security force, at least for the time being. Industrialists Charles Baker and Jean-Claude Fanini-Lemoines said they welcomed the rebels and had been supplying gasoline to parts of the police force that were willing to patrol this smoldering city.

“Aristide left orders with his thugs to loot and destroy the country,” said Fanini-Lemoines, who owns publishing and liqueur plants.

After three hours of caucusing among the gunmen, businessmen in suits and political figures in oxford shirts and khaki trousers, Philippe roared off with his fighters in their sputtering vehicles to spend the night at a police station near the palace.

U.S. and other Western diplomats, who sought a peaceful resolution of the crisis triggered by the rebels’ Feb. 5 uprising in the city of Gonaives, warned during negotiations with Aristide and his political opponents that they would neither recognize nor deal with any figures who rose to power by force.

Aristide’s departure -- cast as voluntary by U.S. officials although the former president claimed to have been kidnapped -- averted a rebel invasion that many feared would leave hundreds dead.

Any action by the rebels to patrol the violence-racked slums and city center would probably pressure the multinational force to step in and disarm the vigilantes -- a move that might prove unpopular among Haitians who see Philippe’s forces as their liberators.

Some capital residents conceded that this troubled nation, which has suffered more than 30 coups in its 200 years of independence, risked creating a government to follow Aristide that would commit the same abuses.

“I wouldn’t trust them,” businessman Dario Arthur said of Philippe’s gunmen. “We’ve seen this all happen before, the euphoria. But people don’t make good judgments when they are emotional.”

Guy Delvas, head of the Haitian Journalists Assn., said many Haitians felt grateful to the rebels. “I don’t think the opposition has any choice but to accept them. None of this would have happened if there hadn’t been pressure from the north.”

While Philippe’s gang talked with police in the headquarters, part of the crowd celebrating Aristide’s ouster rushed to the other end of the park to stage a pro-army demonstration at the former headquarters of the Haitian National Army.

“Constitutionally, the Haitian armed forces still exist, and they want to do something good for the country,” said Victor Day, a 30-year-old cola company manager taking the day off from work -- as has most of the capital for nearly two weeks.

In Petionville, Haitians waving to the rebels along their triumphal route shouted, “Gonaives, Gonaives!”

“We are proud of our arrival in the capital, because we have a struggle to conduct with the Haitian people,” said Chamblain, who was convicted of executing at least 15 Aristide supporters after taking part in the 1991 coup d’etat that sent Aristide into exile the first time.

The formation of a government will follow a formula proposed by the Caribbean Community, said French Ambassador to the U.N. Jean-Marc Rochereau de la Sabliere. A commission made up of representatives from the opposition, the acting government and the U.N. will identify “seven wise men” to select a prime minister “very soon.”

The United Nations is preparing to increase humanitarian aid for the country and help conduct elections. The voting is constitutionally required within three months but likely to be much further down the road, because Haiti’s political institutions have broken down.

Several aid groups are already in Haiti, but food delivery has been blocked by looting and fighting.

“No one can predict what will happen in the next few months,” De la Sabliere said. “The international community can help Haiti find a sustainable settlement. But it depends on the Haitian people also.”

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Times staff writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Port-au-Prince and Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.