Aristide Says U.S. Forced Him to Leave

A day after a U.S.-chartered plane spirited him from his strife-torn country to Africa, exiled Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide charged Monday that the United States had forced him to leave in what he described as a “coup d’etat” and “kidnapping.”

Bush administration officials fervently denied the allegation, but the accusations from Aristide and his allies in the U.S. Congress and elsewhere threw the White House on the defensive and loomed as a potential complication in the effort to steer the impoverished country into a new era after nearly a month of unrest.

At the United Nations, some diplomats expressed uneasiness, fearing that their quick approval Sunday night of a Security Council resolution supporting an international peacekeeping effort was beginning to look more like the sanctioning of a coup.

“Aristide was a democratically elected president who responded positively to a political solution that the opposition rejected,” Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said, referring to a power-sharing deal Aristide had agreed to but Haitian opposition leaders had rebuffed. “But the pressure was not put on the opposition. It was put on him. Today we wonder if we had reliable information, and enough time to make the right decision.”

In Port-au-Prince on Monday, jubilant crowds greeted gun-toting rebels in front of the National Palace, where the new interim government is based.

Several hundred U.S. Marines arrived to form the vanguard of the international stabilization force, but without large numbers of troops, the city remained in a power vacuum. With no army or reliable police force in place, some rebels said they had begun shooting looters.

Aristide, speaking from a government compound in the Central African Republic, said that contrary to what U.S. officials have said publicly, he agreed to go into exile only after American officials told him they would not protect him from the rebel forces that were preparing to overrun the capital.

In an interview with CNN, Aristide said he saw the U.S. military “surround the airport, the palace, my house.... They used pressure to push me out. That’s why I call it again and again a coup d’etat, a modern way to have a modern kidnapping.”

Aristide said he got on a U.S. plane but didn’t know his destination. “They told us that 20 minutes before they landed in Central African Republic.”

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan called Aristide’s accusations “nonsense.”

“Conspiracy theories do nothing to help the Haitian people move toward a better, more free and more prosperous future,” McClellan said.

Aristide’s statements could encourage some of his supporters, especially in the capital’s slums, to resist formation of a new government, but there were few immediate signs of reaction.

U.S. officials have said that Aristide asked for Washington’s help in leaving the country when he realized Saturday night that he could not safely stay. They maintained that Aristide approached U.S. officials about 9 p.m. Saturday to inquire about help, and by midnight, after consulting his family, had agreed to leave and to sign a letter of resignation.

But in statements throughout Monday, Aristide and supporters including Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) -- who spoke to him by phone -- insisted that the story was quite different.

Rangel, after meeting with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and five other members of the Congressional Black Caucus at the United Nations in New York, said Aristide’s resignation letter had been dictated to him by American officials.

Asked if Aristide was kidnapped, Rangel replied: “That’s subjective. You can either stay and get shot, or leave with the military. He chose to leave with the military. So I suspect that you may have a hard time prosecuting the kidnapping. But it was against his will.”

Waters, in a news conference in Los Angeles, said, “I’m convinced that our country has been involved in a regime change.” In the same way that the U.S. has sought to undermine leaders such as Cuba’s Fidel Castro, she said, Aristide was pushed out because “these are leaders of governments who are not considered to be puppets of our country.”

A Haitian diplomat said Monday that a copy of the resignation letter was faxed to him by the U.S. State Department. The diplomat said that led him to believe that Aristide did not write the letter and lent credence, he believed, to Aristide’s claim that his departure was coerced. In his CNN interview, Aristide said that his resignation letter had been doctored.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, asked by reporters if Aristide had been “virtually kidnapped,” grinned at the question.

“I would be amazed if that were the case,” Rumsfeld said.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on Monday offered details of Saturday night conversations involving U.S. officials and Aristide, and acknowledged that they discussed whether he would be safe remaining in Haiti.

Powell said the first call received by U.S. officials mid-evening was from Aristide’s hired security force. “And there was a question about their ability to continue protecting him.”

Powell said that this led to Aristide asking U.S. officials about “the possibility of departure,” and whether the Americans would protect his property and the property of his ministers, and whether they would allow him to choose where he might go.

“We gave him answers to these questions, positive answers,” Powell said.

After he spoke to his wife, Aristide again contacted Powell and his aides, and said it was his decision “based on what his security people were also telling him about the deteriorating situation, that he should leave,” Powell said. “He went onto the airplane willingly. And that’s the truth.”

Powell added that “it would have been better for members of Congress who have heard these stories to ask us about the stories, before going public with them, so that we don’t make a difficult situation that much more difficult.”

But Congressional Black Caucus members criticized Powell for failing to divulge discussions concerning Aristide’s personal safety sooner. Rangel said that over the weekend, he and other lawmakers “were in constant communication with Secretary Powell by phone. And this information about Aristide asking to leave the country and that his life was in danger was never shared with us.”

One congressman said he worried that the other lawmakers’ charges could have a dangerous effect in Haiti.

“They could be inflicting more violence in Haiti by saying that we stole their process,” said Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla.). “It’s reckless and disturbing.”

There have been hints that Aristide supporters might want to continue to direct political activity in Haiti even after his departure.

On Sunday night in Port-au-Prince, the exiled president’s spokesman, Jonas Petit, urged members of Aristide’s Lavalas Party in a radio broadcast to remain mobilized. He said Aristide had been ousted in an American-organized coup.

Aristide is known for his skill at using the international news media to his political advantage. In his interview with CNN, he said he would be “very delighted” to come to the U.S. to “tell the truth” about what had been inflicted on him by Washington.

Meanwhile, some members of the Congressional Black Caucus and the TransAfrica Forum, an advocacy group, urged congressional hearings to investigate what happened in the course of Aristide’s resignation.

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Times staff writers John Hendren in Washington, Carol J. Williams in Haiti and Regine Labossiere in Los Angeles contributed to this article.