Foes of Military Junta Call for General Strike : Haiti: Gen. Cedras rejects the OAS demand that the elected goverment be restored. The capital appears calm.

Foes of a military junta called a general strike for today in hopes of restoring deposed Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to power. An uneasy calm settled on this capital city Thursday, and there were mounting reports of heavy casualties from the coup earlier this week.

Gen. Raoul Cedras, the junta’s leader, indicated that he is prepared to welcome a delegation from the Organization of American States. But he rejected, in advance, the organization’s demand for the return to power of Aristide’s government.

Ordinary residents of this capital city emerged slowly from their homes Thursday amid the scorched streets and burned-out barricades that stood as mute reminders of resistance to the military takeover on Sunday night and Monday.

“I will talk to them--but I hope they meet all other institutions and sectors of Haitian society, so they understand there was no democracy here,” Cedras said in a radio broadcast.

Political leaders in Haiti welcomed word of the OAS delegation’s visit but cautioned against any armed intervention by the United States or any other country.

Sen. Serge Gilles, a socialist who favors the return of Aristide to power, said he would refuse to meet with OAS delegates if they backed the use of military force against the coup leaders. “We are adults enough to go to the negotiating table ourselves,” Gilles said.

While the sun-drenched city streets were deadly calm, there were radio reports of civilian attacks on military posts in the countryside, and one estimate of the death toll exceeded 250.

Heavily armed military patrols kept up a show of force during the day Thursday, but private cars gradually began returning to the streets. Long lines formed at one of the few open gas stations as motorists refilled their tanks, possibly anticipating further restrictions on their movement.

The military junta imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew, signaled by a wailing siren that sent pedestrians scurrying to safety for the night. The gates of the National Palace were smashed, a stark reminder of how Cedras and his allies seized control of the country and sent Aristide into exile in the early hours of Monday.

While charred remains of cars on main roads and a tipped-over truck trailer gave testimony to popular unrest over the ouster of Aristide, a 38-year-old priest who won Haiti’s first free election last December, many residents felt powerless to oppose the coup.

“The army was shooting to kill anything that was out in the streets,” said a European diplomat. One political observer added: “What is important now is going on outside of Haiti, at the OAS, at the U.N..”

Still, Aristide’s supporters called a general strike, urging Haitians to stay away from their jobs to protest the coup. “All activity must be suspended until the return of the president we voted for on Dec. 16,” said Fritz Varela, minister of public works under Aristide.

Port-au-Prince, normally a bustling place with streets jammed with cars and people, appeared mostly deserted Thursday. Stores were boarded up and even sidewalk vendors, for the most part, stopped doing business. Some of the familiar scenes of Haitian women carrying water cans on their heads, however, again were visible, indicating that life here was inching back to normalcy.

Military leaders have banned public meetings and kept the airport shut to commercial traffic, although a few chartered jets carrying American journalists were allowed to land.

There were a few corpses left in the streets, apparently because people feared military retaliation if they tried to remove them. There has been no official death toll. But Radio Metropol quoted hospital sources as saying more than 250 people had died in the fighting so far. However, there was no way to verify the figure. Visitors to the general hospital morgue were told that they needed a military pass to enter the building.

But on Thursday, wounded continued to arrive at the capital’s main hospital. One woman, wounded in both legs, was being treated on the floor of the waiting room. Emergency room officials, said they were turning away all but the most serious cases because of overcrowding. The emergency room officials told the Associated Press that since Sunday night, 324 wounded people had been treated. They said at least 150 were killed.