Under Pressure, Haiti’s Leaders Aren’t Bending : Diplomacy: Despite hard-line approach by Clinton, the military balks at the return of ousted president.

A new hard-line approach by the Clinton Administration and even an implied threat of military intervention by the United Nations have failed to move Haiti’s military toward meaningful negotiations to end the country’s political crisis, diplomatic and Haitian sources say.

“The military here just don’t believe anyone will use military force against them,” one international official said. He added that even if army strongman Raoul Cedras were seriously worried, he is too weak to overcome opposition by others in the military to the return of exiled President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Cedras, today’s de facto ruler of Haiti, led the coup in September, 1991, that overthrew Aristide, the nation’s first democratically elected president.

Another diplomat said that while he thinks the threat of military intervention is real, “it is my view that Cedras is simply buying time in hopes he can still prevent Aristide’s return.”

So far, all efforts to restore constitutional government here have foundered on the military’s refusal, backed by most of Haiti’s civilian elite, to accept Aristide’s return, even in the face of repeated demands from the United States and the Organization of American States. The demands have been backed by the imposition of economically crippling sanctions on this poverty-ridden nation.

“In the past,” said a Haitian political expert who has close contacts with both the military and the United States, “the army never really believed the Bush Administration was truly serious about Aristide’s return, and they thought the OAS was a joke.

“Clinton is a different matter, in my opinion, and so is the United Nations. But Cedras doesn’t realize that, and . . . Cedras isn’t a free agent, and it is doubtful anything short of an invasion will bring Aristide back.”

But other officials, speaking in telephone interviews from Washington, said that representatives of the Clinton Administration have made it clear to the United Nations that the United States will not participate in military action against Haiti.

“What if (the United States) does invade and throws out the military? Then what? It is (something) no one wants to grab hold of,” one official said.

U.N. efforts to resolve the situation here are now in the hands of former Argentine Foreign Minister Dante Caputo, a special envoy who has said that a failure to accept Aristide’s return would lead to strong consequences for Haiti’s current rulers.

Caputo has let there be no doubt that the only negotiating position he will accept is the unrestricted return of the exiled president.

“No benefits should accrue to the perpetrators of the coup,” he said recently in Washington after meeting with Cedras here.

Cedras’ initial reaction was to agree to the presence of a large international observer force to monitor human rights under the auspices of the OAS, a condition previously rejected.

A contingent of 37 observers is expected here by the end of January. They will join 16 others already in place. Aristide, however, has demanded the presence of “thousands of observers,” a demand the military will certainly reject.

“What Cedras did was buy time,” said one foreign official here. “He is counting on Aristide to shoot himself in the foot. He thinks Clinton will find Aristide impossible to deal with, just as Bush discovered.”

Aristide was widely thought by Bush Administration officials, including ranking State Department officials, to have shared equal responsibility with the Haitian military for the failure of previous negotiations to end the crisis.

Another source who has close contacts with the United States said, “I don’t see that Clinton will end up any different from Bush in finding that Aristide is more trouble than he is worth.”

He said that Aristide initially rejected a Clinton request that the exiled president endorse the U.S. policy of blocking all efforts by Haitian refugees to seek asylum in the United States.

“Clinton’s people had to apply very strong pressure,” the source said, “before Aristide finally gave in. It left a sour taste in their mouths.”

But even if Clinton means what he says about the need for Aristide to return and increased pressure by tightening an increasingly weak trade embargo against Haiti, many sources think that anti-Aristide forces here would not bend.

“You can see the difficulty in all this,” said one of the international officials, “in the reaction last week when Cedras accepted the observers.”

He was referring to a minor revolt by a handful of enlisted men protesting Cedras’ position. The rebellion was quickly put down, but diplomats here said the mutinous soldiers reflected the position of powerful forces inside the military as well as among influential civilians.

“The men who provoked them (the rebels) have been working for months to make certain that no concessions are made, and that is of serious concern,” one diplomat said.

“They think that they can survive (any new pressure), even a U.N. embargo,” another diplomat said. “They have survived everything else, so they think they can take on whatever comes.”

One non-military solution was suggested by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who arrived here Saturday for two days of talks with both Aristide’s backers and the military.

After nearly three hours of talks with Cedras, Jackson said he told the general “that he had to accept reality, that democracy and Aristide are coming back.” Jackson also said the military must guarantee the security of Aristide and his followers.

Jackson said that Aristide, for his part, would have to “speak out clearly (that there will) be no retribution” by his government against the army and its allies.

Such a scenario might be possible, a Haitian political expert said, “but as things stand, Jackson’s proposal would involve concessions by both sides that neither will make.”

Aristide would have to agree to leave Cedras and his staff in office, he said, “and that is something he has made clear he won’t do. Cedras would have to agree to Aristide’s return with full (governmental) authority. He can’t do that.”

In what was widely considered to be a gesture of self-importance by radical anti-Aristide forces, Jackson was halted by Haitian soldiers Saturday afternoon during a tour of a boat-building site in a beach city near the capital.

The soldiers delayed Jackson and his party for about half an hour while they inspected his papers.

Earlier, while Jackson was meeting with Cedras, police arrested Antoine Ismiry, a major financial supporter of Aristide’s and the local organizer of Jackson’s visit.

“It clearly was an effort to embarrass Cedras and to show Jackson that neither Cedras nor (de facto Prime Minister Marc) Bazin can control events here,” a European diplomat said.