U.S., Latins Weigh Moves to Pressure Haiti : Refugees: One choice is said to be tightening the embargo along with an airlift of food and medicine.

With refugees fleeing Haiti in rising numbers and the military-backed government apparently impervious to an international embargo, U.S. and Latin American governments are reviewing options for increasing pressure to restore democratic rule, a Bush Administration official said Wednesday.

Although no decisions have been made, the official said that one alternative is to tighten the embargo against Haitian business while mounting an airlift of food, medicine and other humanitarian aid to cushion the impact on the poor.

The official, who declined to be identified by name, confirmed a report in the New York Times on Wednesday that a freeze on foreign assets of wealthy supporters of the military is “a possibility.” But he flatly denied that a military response is being discussed, as the newspaper reported.

“Military action is not under active consideration,” the official said.

The U.S. government is becoming increasingly alarmed at the situation in Haiti, where last Sept. 30 the military overthrew Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the nation’s first freely elected president.

Officials who hoped for a peaceful resolution were shaken by a police attack Saturday on a political rally being addressed by Rene Theodore, a Communist Party leader who had been tapped to become prime minister under a failed compromise plan to restore Aristide to power with sharply reduced powers. A bodyguard to Theodore was killed.

“Last weekend’s events show that many of those who took power in Haiti are seeking to derail efforts to reach a negotiated solution,” said State Department spokesman Joe Snyder. “Those events only strengthen our view that the full restoration of democracy is the only acceptable solution to Haiti’s crisis.”

The Administration has given up hope of carrying out the compromise, which was brokered by the 34-nation Organization of American States. However, an official said some other arrangement may yet be possible.

“There are plenty of parties that are interested in a negotiated solution,” he said. “There has been a setback but it is not impossible that a negotiated solution can be reached.”

Snyder said that 1,178 Haitians were picked up at sea by the Coast Guard on Tuesday, raising the total to almost 5,000 in just over a week--nearly as many as were rescued over the preceding 3 1/2 months.

American officials are not certain about the reason for the increase, Snyder said, but they see several possibilities.

“It’s becoming widely known that Coast Guard cutters lie just offshore, making it safer for people to put to sea,” he said. “Immediate prospects for a rapid political solution and lifting of the economic embargo have dimmed. The storm season is subsiding and the weather has been fairly good recently. And the temporary lull over the holiday period is now ended.”

The upsurge has filled to overflowing the tent city at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where most of the Haitians have been held while their claims for political asylum are evaluated. Under U.S. law, refugees may remain in the United States by establishing that they have a reasonable fear of persecution at home. The persecution must be directed at specific individuals, however. Widespread violence or starvation is not enough.

So far, 3,279 Haitians have been found to have a plausible claim to asylum. Of those, 1,237 have been flown to the United States while the rest are still at Guantanamo Bay.