Carter Says Emotional Appeals Saved Talks : Diplomacy: Cedras’ wife relented after vehemently opposing deal with U.S. Jonassaint gave final OK.

Former President Jimmy Carter said Monday that his Haiti mission twice teetered on the edge of failure and the military leaders in Port-au-Prince were on the verge of deciding to fight to the bitter end--only to be turned around by emotion-charged appeals from American negotiators.

The first crisis came Sunday, when American negotiators confronted Yannick Cedras, the wife of Haitian military chief Raoul Cedras--a strong-willed woman little known in America. She was mounting a powerful, behind-the-scenes argument against the Haitian junta yielding power and in favor of a fight to the death, Carter said in an interview with The Times.

Though her youngest son was just celebrating his 10th birthday, an impassioned Mrs. Cedras told the former President that her family’s roots in Haiti went back 200 years and “they all (the family)) had agreed they would die before yielding to a foreign invasion.”

The second crisis came hours later.

With time running out and only a few points remaining to be settled, Carter said Haitian Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby burst into the room with a portable telephone in his hand and shouted at Colin L. Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who--along with Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Sam Nunn--had joined in the last-ditch effort to persuade the generals to step down before U.S. invaders swept the tiny Caribbean nation.

“What would you do, if your troops didn’t know what was going on and you heard that paratroopers at Ft. Bragg (N.C.) had been told to prepare for an invasion?” Carter said Biamby declared, suggesting the American negotiating mission was a trick designed to distract Haiti’s military commanders on the eve of an invasion.

“They were considering leaving that room and marching down and defending their country,” Carter said.

The former President, almost in tears, said he “made an emotional speech” decrying the damage a U.S.-led economic embargo had inflicted on the children of Haiti.

“I said I was ashamed of what my country had done to their country,” Carter recalled. “There’s no way to lift the embargo or to provide food and medicine unless we find a way to end this peacefully. . . I said if I go back now and we don’t have peace, what happens to the children?” Then he said to Cedras, “This whole thing boils down to your wanting to stay in office for a few more weeks or months.”

After a moment, Cedras replied, “Let’s go tell it to the president (Emile Jonassaint). And I said OK.”

Traveling across the street to the Presidential Palace, through a noisy throng, the generals and the negotiators laid the case before the 81-year-old former chief justice of Haiti’s Supreme Court.

Though the Clinton Administration had regarded the jurist as a powerless figurehead, Carter said that, in this final act of the chaotic drama, Jonassaint asserted ultimate authority.

Members of the interim Cabinet angrily denounced the deal. The defense minister took the occasion to announce his resignation.

But Jonassaint, recalling his long life in Haiti--including a role as chairman of the committee that drafted the nation’s constitution in 1987--weighed in for peace.

“Peace. We want peace. We don’t want war,” Carter said Jonassaint told the generals.

President Clinton and other Administration officials have repeatedly denounced Cedras and the other generals for corruption and brutal violations of human rights, including torture, rape and the murder of children.

But Carter said that throughout his conversations with Cedras, he was very impressed by what he considered the general’s unselfish approach to the issue of stepping down. In talking with him, Carter said, Cedras was not asking for anything for himself.

Carter said he believes Cedras will honor the agreement now, though he said there was a moment Monday when Cedras concluded he had been betrayed and threatened to pull out of the deal once again.

Carter said he was in touch with Cedras on Monday to ensure everything was going well. In fact, Carter said he had suggested he stay behind Sunday night in Port-au-Prince but Clinton told him he wanted him to come back to confer.

Monday morning, Cedras told Robert Pastor, Carter’s Latin American specialist who went with him on the mission and has stayed behind, to be at the Haitian army’s command headquarters at 9:40 because the situation seemed to be breaking down. Cedras told Pastor that it looked like he was being “betrayed” by the United States, Carter said, and he was thinking he would not cooperate after all.

“Bob was frantic. He thought things were going to hell,” Carter said.

Cedras was apparently worried that he would be forcibly ousted from the country by the arriving troops after all.

But Cedras and others watched Carter’s television appearances on Monday and were mollified.

It was not clear which parts of Carter’s comments the generals found reassuring. But Carter said they had repeatedly expressed resentment at the way Clinton and other Administration officials had denounced them as barbarous and corrupt dictators--impugning their honor, as the Haitian generals saw it.

Carter by contrast, in a CNN interview and in other public remarks throughout the day, was careful to avoid critical rhetoric and instead praised the generals for putting their country’s interest first and avoiding bloodshed.

Carter said he had made special arrangements to do the early morning interview before he went to the White House so he would be able to speak directly to the Haitian people and officials, outside the coordinated message of the Clinton Administration presentation.

In the tense session with Mrs. Cedras, conducted at the Cedras home, Carter said the general’s wife began to change her mind only after Powell, who is much-admired in Haiti, spoke to her about the true nature of military honor.

An American invasion would result in the destruction of the Haitian army, Powell told Mrs. Cedras, and her husband’s highest obligation was not to die for his country but to preserve his army as an institution and spare his country the agonies of an invasion.

The meeting with Mrs. Cedras came after a politically active Haitian acquaintance and the former American President’s wife, Rosalynn--who talked to Carter by telephone from Atlanta during a low point in the negotiations--had encouraged Carter in particular to talk to Mrs. Cedras in hopes of improving chances for success.

Carter said he and the Cedrases had gotten to know each other in 1990, when Carter was a leader of international monitors who oversaw the voting that made Jean-Bertrand Aristide the country’s first freely elected president--an election Cedras and his allies overturned in a bloody coup the next year.

General and Mrs. Cedras were both “deeply religious,” Carter said he had learned.

The general invited Carter, along with Powell and Nunn, to visit his wife. At the house when the American negotiators arrived were Cedras’ 17-year-old son, his 13-year-old daughter and the 10-year-old son.

Cedras remarked that, because he had been up around the clock dealing with the invasion threat, he had barely had a chance to speak to the boy on his birthday.

Carter put the child on his lap. Searching through his pockets for something to offer as a present, all Carter could find was a blue pocket knife, a souvenir from the Carter Center. The young boy was delighted with it.

And at one point the general’s daughter came running in with a photograph of Carter and herself that he had inscribed to her during a visit in 1990.

But the meeting soon turned serious.

“The situation was extremely intense,” Carter recalled. “We tried to engage in some niceties but she wasn’t listening. She said her family had lived in Haiti for 200 years and her grandfather and father were of such stature that they could have been in public office but they preferred to work as patriots (in the private sector) in an environment of challenge.”

“Any person who doesn’t understand that Haitian people would rather fight and give up their life for their country doesn’t understand Haitian people,” he quoted her as declaring.

Powell told Cedras that he was highly intelligent and should have the wisdom to know that it would not be betraying his country if he were to protect his people by agreeing to a peaceful settlement.

“I told him that it was more difficult to win peace than war,” Carter said, “that it was a complex challenge that required multiple decisions. And he had a chance to make a historic decision.”

They talked for about an hour. Carter said that when they finished, Mrs. Cedras was quiet for a long time. “Then she looked at her husband and he said, ‘Mr. President, I want you to go see President Jonassaint.’ And I said let me meet with you at your headquarters. I don’t need to go see him. And he said no, you go see the president, that’s more important. You can’t insult my president.”

Carter said he was later told by Cedras’ brother Alex, who had acted as an interpreter, that his visit had done much to reduce Mrs. Cedras’ resistance.

Carter said the idea for the mission was posed by a Haitian government acquaintance, who wrote him recently expressing his concern about the approaching confrontation with the United States and asking whether there was anything Carter could do. Carter said he passed the word that he would be willing to talk to Cedras, if the general wished; Cedras soon called.

Their Roles in the Diplomatic Cliffhanger

Key players in the dramatic final hours leading up to the agreement Sunday night in Port-au-Prince:

THE AMERICANS

Jimmy Carter: As the talks appeared to be unraveling, the former President made an emotional speech decrying the damage a U.S.-led economic embargo had inflicted on the children of Haiti.

Colin L. Powell: Much-admired in Haiti, he spoke to Mrs. Cedras about the true nature of military honor. The tense session eased her opposition to the deal.

Sam Nunn: The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman joined in the last-ditch effort to persuade the generals to step down before U.S. forces swept the tiny nation.

THE HAITIANS

Raoul Cedras: Throughout his conversations with Cedras, Carter said he was very impressed that the general seemed unselfish about his role.

Yannick Cedras: Her behind-the-scenes movement against yielding power threatened the agreement. She told Carter she would die before giving up.

Philippe Biamby: The army chief of staff burst into the room after getting word that U.S. planes were launched. He wondered if the talks were merely a diversion.

Emile Jonassaint: The Haitian negotiators turned to the 81-year-old Haitian president for the final decision. “Peace. We want peace,” he told the generals.

Michel-Joseph Francois: The Port-au-Prince police chief was not a party to the agreement. He has gone into virtual hiding.