Cedras Predicts Blood Bath, Sees U.S. Invasion as Inevitable

Haitian military leader Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras said in an interview aired Saturday that he believes a U.S. invasion of Haiti is unavoidable, and he predicted bloodshed “on both sides” because his armed forces would resist the takeover to their fullest.

William H. Gray III, President Clinton’s special adviser on Haiti, said he agreed that the two sides appear to be on a “collision” course. Unless Haiti’s military rulers step down and allow the return of the country’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, armed intervention appears “inevitable,” Gray said.

The tough talk came amid reports from Haiti that new recruits and civilian irregulars are being signed up to bolster the military’s ranks following the U.N. Security Council’s decision to authorize an invasion of the Caribbean nation.

Confirming the call-up in a televised interview on CNN, Cedras said he thinks the crisis has moved beyond the stage where diplomacy could avert an armed confrontation.

“It has been decided to invade, and we are awaiting the moment,” he said.

Using slowly tightening economic sanctions backed by the threat of an invasion, the Clinton Administration has been trying to pressure Cedras and the other military leaders who ousted Aristide into resigning and allowing the exiled president’s return.

Interviewed separately on CNN’s “Evans and Novak” program, both Cedras and Gray indicated that they think the long process of pressure and posturing by each side is finally drawing to a close as alternatives run out.

But Gray repeated what other senior officials, including Clinton, have said, indicating that the recently tightened embargo would be given more time to work before any decision is made to exercise “other options.”

“There are still a series of economic pressure points we can work on,” Gray said, referring to the recent arrival in the Dominican Republic of U.N. advisers charged with stopping the smuggling of fuel and other essentials across that country’s porous border with Haiti.

“We’re going . . . to see in the next couple of weeks what sealing the border does,” Gray said, adding that the Administration is considering a “variety of other options which I’m not at liberty to talk about” before deciding whether to invade.