Haiti Military Leader Accepts U.N. Plan : Diplomacy: But ousted president has concerns about details in proposal to return him to power.

Haitian military commander Raoul Cedras accepted a U.N. plan for his own resignation and the return of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to Haiti, but Aristide balked at the arrangements as negotiators worked into the night Friday to salvage an agreement.

The plan, proposed by special U.N. envoy Dante Caputo, provided for the removal of Cedras sometime before the return of Aristide on Oct. 30, but diplomatic sources said that Aristide wants the immediate resignation of the general, who ousted him in a coup almost two years ago.

Cedras planned to leave Governors Island, the tiny island off Manhattan that is the site of the negotiations, and return to Haiti today. A U.N. official said that Caputo is prepared to end the talks whether or not Aristide accepts the proposal.

In its key points, the Caputo plan sets up an order of events for what could be the first peaceful return to office of an ousted president in the history of Latin America, according to diplomatic sources.

Under the plan, Aristide--a Roman Catholic priest who was elected president in December, 1990, in what was widely regarded as impoverished Haiti’s first democratic election--would appoint a prime minister. This would be followed by the lifting of economic sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the Organization of American States, a parliamentary amnesty for all those who took part in the September, 1991, coup against Aristide, the resignation of Cedras and others who played a part in ousting Aristide and suppressing his supporters and, finally, the return of Aristide.

But Aristide, according to diplomatic sources, has concerns about the period during which his prime minister would have to share power with Cedras. Aristide wants Cedras out of the way before the new prime minister takes over and prepares the way for his return.

Cedras seemed to have very few problems with Caputo’s proposals. Serge Charles, a former Haitian ambassador to Washington who acted as a spokesman for Cedras, told reporters, “We find it acceptable, notwithstanding pretty small details that have to be worked out.”

Charles described these details as “small problems of drafting . . . a question of editing.”

This was confirmed by diplomats who said that they regarded Cedras’ reply to Caputo as a definite acceptance of the plan.

Aristide’s reply, however, was far more equivocal. Jean Casimir, Aristide’s ambassador to Washington, told reporters that while the Caputo plan “contains all the elements necessary for the restoration of democracy,” Aristide and his advisers are “currently discussing important issues of timing and sequence with U.N. and OAS negotiators.”

Caputo, a former Argentine foreign minister, has met separately with Cedras and Aristide for six straight days. At a news conference, Cedras maintained that he had come all the way from Haiti to speak to Aristide face to face and intended to insist on that. But lieutenants of Aristide countered that, as president, he did not have to speak with the man who ousted him.

Aristide has been shuttling between his New York hotel and Governors Island, while Cedras has remained on the island, which serves as a U.S. Coast Guard base. U.N. and U.S. security officers have apparently insisted that he remain there for his own safety. Thousands of Haitians demonstrate in favor of Aristide in New York every day.