Haiti Puppet President Declares Emergency : Caribbean: No unusual military activity is evident. U.S. diplomats warn about treatment of Americans.

The Haitian military’s puppet president declared a state of emergency Sunday, stating that “our country is faced by extreme danger” and “risks invasion and occupation.”

Emile Jonassaint, 81, who was installed as president last month, announced the decree in a speech on a television network to a population with few television sets and at a time, 2 a.m., when most of the country was without electricity. He gave no details about what the state of emergency would entail.

But his message brought denunciations from U.S. diplomats, who reminded the military and the Jonassaint regime that they are responsible for the safety of U.S. citizens as well as other international officials.

Jonassaint pointed to a perceived threat of military intervention, saying: “Tonight, I come to ask you . . . to mobilize for the defense of our country. Haiti will not yield to the foreigners’ demands. . . . I order the commander in chief of the armed forces of Haiti to prepare for every eventuality.”

No unusual military actions were evident. Roads remained open except for the roadblocks that have been erected for the last month.

No troops were on the streets, the government made no move to take over radio or television stations, and no curfew was declared.

In Washington, William H. Gray III, the White House special adviser on Haiti, denied that the Clinton Administration has any timetable for a possible invasion of Haiti to overthrow the military regime.

“I know that that is not the case,” Gray said, when asked about reports that the United States might invade Haiti by the end of July if economic sanctions don’t work.

Gray said on ABC’s “This Week With David Brinkley” that President Clinton has not ruled out the use of military force in Haiti, but he insisted that the Administration is keeping its focus on newly imposed economic sanctions for now.

Haiti has been under various economic embargoes since the violent ouster of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in September, 1991. More stringent sanctions were applied last month and again Friday, when Clinton announced an end to air traffic and most financial transactions between the United States and Haiti.

Gray also denied that the new sanctions will hurt the poor of Haiti and lead to an even larger flood of refugees seeking to come to the United States.

“Those who would suggest that these sanctions are impoverishing Haiti forget the fact that it’s not the poor people of Haiti who are flying on American Airlines--either economy class, business class or first class--but it is actually the oligarchy and the military dictatorship that has caused the impoverishment of the people of Haiti,” he said.

Haiti has been ruled unconstitutionally since the military violently overthrew Aristide.

“Haiti hasn’t had a rule of law for 2 1/2 years and hasn’t followed the constitution anyway. So it is hard to imagine what he is talking about,” a Western diplomat said Sunday of Jonassaint’s statement.

The Haitian military and police have been ignoring even Haiti’s rudimentary legal code, arresting people without warrants, beating prisoners and, according to international human rights organizations, murdering citizens.

In his statement, Jonassaint asked the people to remain calm “and go about your daily business as normal.” But he called on Haitians to be “determined like our ancestors to fight to the death,” invoking the nation’s founding fathers, who ousted French slaveholder colonists to win independence in 1804.

He also invoked Haiti’s predominant voodoo religion, saying, “Haiti has protectors they don’t know about” and ending the speech by invoking the name of Agawou, the voodoo god of strength.

Times staff writer James Risen in Washington contributed to this report.