Haiti Agrees to Accept Contingent of Rights Monitors : Caribbean: The government will also discuss return of ousted president. That might permit U.S. to end blockade to repel refugees.

International human rights monitors will be sent to Haiti within the next 10 days in an attempt to end the repression that has driven thousands of impoverished Haitians to try to flee the beleaguered island, U.N. envoy Dante Caputo said Thursday.

Caputo said that the military-dominated government, which ousted elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September, 1991, has agreed to accept the monitors and to begin negotiations aimed at restoring Aristide to power.

Such a solution likely would allow President Clinton to remove a Coast Guard blockade put in place a week ago to turn back Haitians attempting to flee the island to seek refuge in Florida. The blockade was ordered by former President George Bush at the request of the incoming Clinton Administration, despite Clinton’s campaign promise to demonstrate a more humane policy toward Haitian refugees.

Caputo, a former Argentine foreign minister who represents both the United Nations and the Organization of American States in the Haiti crisis, told the OAS council that he is determined to produce a political solution that does not reward the coup leaders. “No benefits should accrue to the perpetrators of the coup,” Caputo said. “They should have no halfway success. The only outcome of a coup d’etat should be total failure.”

But Caputo said later that the key to a political settlement is a dialogue with the de facto government and Gen. Raul Cedras, who engineered the coup.

Asked at a brief news conference after the meeting what the government would have to negotiate about if the OAS already has determined that the coup should end in failure, Caputo said the Haitian military will remain a power even if Aristide is restored to the presidency; he said it is necessary to negotiate the future role of the army.

The U.S. government said it will provide $1 million immediately to pay for the early expenses of the human rights monitoring group. But American and OAS officials conceded that the full cost of the operation will be far greater.

The OAS has been trying to send civilian observers to Haiti since just after the coup, but the efforts were blocked by the Haitian government. Caputo said, however, that Cedras has agreed to accept such a mission this time. He declined to say how many observers will go but said they must be granted access to the entire country and not be confined to the capital.

Caputo, who conferred with Cedras in Haiti last weekend, admitted that he did not raise the matter of Aristide’s return during that meeting. But he said that should not be taken as an indication that the international community will accept any result that does not restore Aristide to power.

Jean Casimir, an Aristide appointee the OAS continues to recognize as the Haitian representative, told the organization, “Thousands of our people are leaving our shore looking for a better future.” He called on the world to “tackle the problem at the root . . . by looking at the causes leading to the exodus.” Casimir said the OAS should retain economic sanctions against Haiti until Aristide is restored to power.

Patrick Lewas, the representative of the tiny Caribbean island of Antigua, said the OAS monitors must remain in Haiti for a long time if they hope to stop persecution of the country’s poor majority by an elite minority of rich merchants and military commanders.

“The fleeing of Haitians now represents the saddest day of all the sad days in Haitian history,” Lewas said. “This means that conditions in Haiti have become hopeless.”