Fears Delay Aristide’s Return to Haiti, U.S. Official Asserts : Caribbean: All sides in nation reportedly accept that ousted president must come back. But all are said to dread the ramifications.

All sides in Haiti, including the military, understand that ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide must be restored to office, but fear stands in the way of figuring out how to arrange that, a senior Clinton Administration official said Wednesday.

“The fear level is very pervasive,” said the official, who is working on the Haitian crisis daily. “It is fear of the unknown, fear of reprisal, fear of chaos, of people running amok.”

The official indicated that Dante Caputo, the former Argentine foreign minister who is working on the problem as special U.N. envoy, will not bring a final and detailed plan for Aristide’s return when he visits the island Monday.

One key problem is the future of Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the powerful military leader. There have been reports that a Caputo-brokered plan would have Cedras and Col. Michel-Joseph Francois, the Port-au-Prince police chief, resign and leave the country for exile. But the Administration official told reporters that various formulas dealing with Cedras and Francois are still under consideration.

In fact, he implied that the most significant aspect of Caputo’s return to Haiti is the fact that he is due to resume his dialogue with the military leaders.

“There is a great concern to keep the tempo going,” said the U.S. official, “that people don’t fall back from what has been achieved.”

He also implied that Caputo, who has been meeting with Aristide, may have some difficulty getting full support for his plans from the ousted president.

But, the official said, it is significant that most Haitians realize “the status quo is no longer viable.”

“Businessmen, even the people in the armed forces, have come to this conclusion,” he went on. “The real question is how you go on from this conclusion. But the inevitability of the return (of Aristide) is taken as a given.”

He attributed this acceptance of Aristide to the realization of Haitian leaders that sanctions have reduced their country’s economy to a woeful state.

“The situation is more than desperate,” the official said. “It’s gone beyond desperate. It’s more than empty. It’s in terrible shape.”