Bodies Dumped by Roadside a Sign of the Times in Haiti : Caribbean: They were found after a new premier was sworn in--and where two key diplomats were to stay.

The two bodies lay head to toe in the ditch along the narrow mountain road, their skulls shattered by bullets, their skin mottled and bloated from the tropical heat and the obvious beatings they suffered.

Nearby residents said the bodies had been flung from a moving van shortly after dawn. They landed just a few hundred yards from the Montana hotel, which houses many foreign journalists and also serves as the headquarters for an international human rights mission.

Human rights observers were cautious on the record, but privately they said the murders of the two men had the earmarks of political assassination, most likely by military agents.

The incident was particularly ominous, not only because of where the bodies were found--”a clear signal,” in the words of one human rights worker--but also because of the timing.

Just 24 hours earlier, Robert Malval, a wealthy, moderate businessman, had been sworn in as prime minister. His installation marked an important step in the restoration of Haitian democracy and the weakening of the power of the military that has controlled this country since overthrowing President Jean-Bertrand Aristide nearly two years ago.

As if to make certain the point was made, the bodies were found on the day, last Tuesday, when two senior diplomats charged with overseeing Aristide’s restoration arrived to arrange the next step--the reformation of the military.

In addition, both Lawrence Pezzullo, President Clinton’s special adviser on Haiti, and Dante Caputo, the United Nations’ leading Haiti expert, were to stay at the Montana.

“Clearly,” said another diplomat, “the killers wanted everyone to know that they haven’t given up.”

It was not supposed to have turned out this way when Aristide and army Commander in Chief Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras signed an agreement July 3 that called for the president to return Oct. 30 and for Cedras and other military leaders to resign.

Cedras agreed to an increased presence of human rights observers, the separation of the army and the police and the restoration of constitutional guarantees of political freedom.

Instead, human rights violations have increased alarmingly. Shot and mutilated bodies found on roadsides and streets are increasingly common in Haiti.

The official count by the human rights mission of the United Nations and Organization of American States lists suspected political killings at one a day over the last two months, but experts say the real total is twice that.

Nightly raids by both uniformed and civilian-dressed men are conducted in poor neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince and in the isolated countryside. Often shots are fired seemingly indiscriminately at houses and in the air to intimidate the inhabitants, most of whom are Aristide supporters.

But in recent days, firing, sometimes with heavy weapons, is heard in middle-class and even wealthy neighborhoods.

At times, the violence is very public. While Malval was swearing in his Cabinet Thursday in the National Palace, plainclothes security agents beat pro-Aristide spectators who had gathered outside the building to celebrate the event.

Earlier in the week, a pro-Aristide member of the parliamentary House of Deputies, Evans Picault, was shot in the shoulder in what he said was an attempted murder by political enemies.

The terror is not limited to Haitians. The life of a foreign journalist was threatened by an aide to the military high command. She took it seriously enough to leave the country.

One human rights expert said there is “a definite correlation” between the increased violence and the implementation of the July 3 accord to return Aristide.

“As the tension increases, there is an increase in political repression,” the expert said.

The targets generally are local political activists known to support Aristide, or members of community action groups organized during the seven months that the president served before his ouster. But sometimes, the expert said, they are “prominent people of influence” whether they actively back Aristide or not.

“The pattern is that they are picked up at night by masked, armed men in civilian clothes,” the human rights official said. “We think they are military men in civilian dress, or attaches,” a reference to security agents paid by the army or local authorities.

“Those that aren’t killed typically say they are taken in a van blindfolded, beaten, interrogated and then thrown out of the van,” the official said. “Sometimes their heads are shaved, either to intimidate them or to mark them as enemies.”

The human rights observers, who number about 215, report being frustrated by their inability to prevent the terrorism, identify the people responsible or get the justice system to work.

Since the anti-Aristide coup, according to the Inter-American Human Rights Commission, an agency of the Organization of American States, the military and its associates have killed 1,500 people, beaten thousands more and forced 300,000 to flee their homes.