Threats to Set Up New Government Fizzle in Haiti

Radical opponents of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, in a show of posturing and rhetoric, called again Sunday for Aristide’s resignation but stopped well short of carrying out earlier vows to form a provisional Haitian government to replace him.

A resolution passed by leaders of the Front for the Advancement and Progress of Haiti (FRAPH) and read by former army Col. Jodel Chamblain to reporters repeated demands made Friday by the group. It said that:

* Aristide should immediately resign and give up his efforts to return from the two years of exile since the Sept. 30, 1991, military coup against his 7-month-old government.

* Pro-Aristide Prime Minister Robert Malval also should resign.

* Parliament should invoke Article 149 of the Haitian constitution, declare the presidency vacant, appoint a “provisional government of national unity” and call for new elections “in 90 days, not one day more and not one day less.”

* Special U.N. envoy Dante Caputo should resign to be replaced by “someone more impartial,” most likely a Vatican official but perhaps Gen. Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The resolution also said that military commander Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, “who has served the country with honor and dignity,” should resign to be replaced by a commander chosen by the army.

Although there was much talk about crimes committed by Aristide, betrayals of national sovereignty and misgovernment by Malval, Sunday’s words were far milder than previous FRAPH talk of “install(ing) our own government in the National Palace” if Aristide had not resigned by Saturday night.

“We’re not staging a coup,” said Emanuel Constant, secretary general of FRAPH. “It is normally the army that stages coups.”

And instead of throwing Malval out of office, Constant said that Parliament “should force him to quit.”

Aristide, of course, did not resign, and spokesmen for both Caputo and Malval said they weren’t going anywhere, leaving Haiti where it was: its elected leader still in exile in Washington, its prime minister locked in his house in fear and the country in the hands of the army.

Malval cannot leave his home for fear of attack and lack of real authority, a status made painfully clear when he was unable to obtain a license plate from the police for his newly arrived armored car.

But it was also made clear by several events Sunday morning that the apparent masters of Haiti--Cedras, Port-au-Prince Police Chief Michel-Joseph Francois and other officers--may realize that their power also is limited.

According to diplomats and Haitian experts, the lack of action by FRAPH on Sunday reflected a reluctance by the military to depose Aristide and Malval, even though the two men have only titles and no power.

“Never forget that the military completely controls FRAPH and the other hard-line anti-Aristide groups,” one Haitian analyst said. It provides them with money, arms and leadership, he said.

Cedras and the rest of the military’s high command met late into the night Saturday to decide on a course of action. “It is clear that they weren’t prepared to take that final step,” a diplomat said.

What held them back, the diplomat said, was the fear of total isolation by the international community in the form of a complete economic and commercial blockade of a country already strangling under the impact of a stringent U.N. embargo.

The United Nations began consultations about such a blockade when it became clear that Cedras would not abide by an agreement he signed July 3 at Governors Island in New York harbor that called for his resignation last month and Aristide’s return Oct. 30.

Diplomats said that the naming of a provisional government also would have destroyed a public relations campaign around the world--but particularly in the United States--to picture Aristide and Malval as the violators of the Governors Island accord and responsible for the current crisis.

The sources noted a call by Caputo for meetings later this week by the military, Aristide’s followers and parliamentary leaders to repair the July 3 agreement.

“As long as the chance for another meeting exists, Cedras didn’t want to be the one who ended the process,” one diplomat said.

Whatever the reason, the military’s inaction left FRAPH and the other anti-Aristide gangs looking empty and without authority.

One leader, Vladimir Jeanty, had called for a mass demonstration at 8 a.m. Sunday in front of the National Palace that would lead to an occupation of the stained and peeling white building in central Port-au-Prince.

When no one showed up, he changed the time to 11 a.m. At that point the demonstration consisted of Jeanty shouting through a megaphone at a couple dozen reporters and TV crews and a handful of apparent supporters.

“Not now,” he said after about 15 minutes. “We will be here at 3 p.m.”

When that hour came, not even Jeanty was there.