U.S. Recalls Envoy to Haiti Over Police Attack

The Bush Administration recalled its ambassador from Haiti on Monday to protest a weekend police attack on Rene Theodore, the Communist Party leader tapped to become prime minister under an apparently collapsing compromise to restore legitimate government.

Armed men wearing civilian clothes barged into Communist Party headquarters during a meeting being addressed by Theodore on Saturday, killing his bodyguard and beating politicians. There were no reports that Theodore himself was injured.

Victims said they recognized the assailants as police officers.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s military-backed interim government acknowledged Monday that police carried out the raid.

The British news service Reuters later reported the arrest of a police corporal named in a Defense and Interior Ministry communique promising that those involved in the raid would be found and tried for “voluntary homicide, torture, blows and voluntary injury.”

In Washington, State Department spokesman Joe Snyder condemned the Haitian government.

“Those who have taken power in Haiti have claimed that they support a return to democratic rule,” Snyder said. “However, Saturday’s brutal attack on a peaceful political meeting does nothing but impede the restoration of constitutional rule. The regime should know that restoring democracy is the only way to end Haiti’s political and economic isolation.”

Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in exile since his ouster by the military last fall, named Theodore to the prime minister’s post under an agreement the Organization of American States brokered with members of the Haitian Parliament. Theodore, a critic of Aristide, was considered a compromise candidate who could form a government and clear the way for Aristide to resume the presidency, although apparently with sharply diminished power.

The OAS had promised to lift a ruinous economic embargo as soon as Theodore’s government took office. However, the interim government rejected the deal and refused to confirm Theodore’s appointment.

Meanwhile, Snyder confirmed a sharp increase in the number of Haitians fleeing the embattled country in small boats. In the last week, he said, 2,045 people were picked up by the U.S. Coast Guard. On Friday alone, the number was 1,072.

In Miami, the U.S. Coast Guard reported that more than 1,100 refugees were rescued at sea on Monday, the largest one-day total since the interdiction program began in 1981, and “there were numerous sailboats on the horizon,” according to Petty Officer Veronica Cady. Even with 10 Coast Guard cutters on patrol in the Windward Passage, the refugee wave “threatens to overwhelm our rescue operations,” Cady said.