U.S. Troops Pour Into Haiti : Operation Goes Smoothly; Clinton Cites Risks : Caribbean: President says he expects the military dictators to leave, but the weekend deal makes no provision for their exile. American soldiers are generally welcomed.

By JOHN M. BRODER and KENNETH FREED

Sept. 20, 1994 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti —

Thousands of U.S. troops swarmed into the Haitian capital unopposed Monday to begin a military occupation designed to restore democracy to the troubled Caribbean nation, as President Clinton warned that the mission still carries enormous risks and uncertainties.

Troops laden for combat debarked from ships and helicopters at numerous points and were generally welcomed, bringing hope that the violent and impoverished country can finally enjoy an unaccustomed period of internal peace.

While the initial stages of the military operation appeared to proceed smoothly, new questions arose in Washington about the deal negotiated by a delegation led by former President Jimmy Carter to unseat the military dictatorship that seized power three years ago.

Chief among the outstanding questions are whether Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the military strongman, and his cronies will leave Haiti or play some role in the nation’s future. Also unclear is how deeply the United States will become enmeshed in the task of trying to fashion a democracy in a nation that has never known it.

At a White House news conference, Clinton said he hoped and expected that Cedras and his top two aides would leave the country. But Clinton admitted that the deal brokered by Carter, Sen. Sam Nunn (D-Ga.) and retired Gen. Colin L. Powell makes no provision for their departure.

“I think they should leave, I think they probably will leave at some point--but that is something that still has to be worked out, and something that subsequent actions by all the actors in the Haitian drama will have to be heavily relied upon,” Clinton said.

Clinton tried to paper over an open disagreement with Carter on the fate of Cedras, army chief of staff Brig. Gen. Philippe Biamby and the Port-au-Prince police chief, Lt. Col. Michel-Joseph Francois. Carter said Monday that requiring their exile would be a serious violation of human rights and that he never attempted to persuade them to leave Haiti.

Clinton had insisted throughout the crisis that the three must leave Haiti to allow the return of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, Haiti’s first democratically elected president.

The first elements of the American force that was to have violently ejected Cedras and the junta from power appeared peacefully at dawn in Port-au-Prince harbor, as two U.S. warships and a Coast Guard cutter steamed into view while thousands of Haitian civilians gathered to witness the appearance of the second U.S. occupation force this century.

At 9:45 a.m., the first troops, a security unit designed to protect the arrival of Lt. Gen. Hugh Shelton, commander of the American forces, leaped off a heavily armed helicopter gunship at the civilian airport in the Haitian capital.

They were ready for the worst but did not encounter it. Instead, they were greeted, casually, by Brig. Gen. Max Mayard, who holds the Haitian army’s fourth-highest rank but no real power.

Shelton went immediately to Haitian army headquarters to meet with military commander Cedras to clarify the rules for the U.S. occupation.

The generals’ encounter was ironic and unexpected. Just last Thursday, in a stern address to the U.S. public, Clinton described Cedras as the murderous leader of an illegitimate government who would be leaving Haiti within days--either voluntarily or at point of American bayonets.

Shelton described the meeting as “warm and cooperative.”

In a briefing for reporters, Shelton said he hoped the Haitians would handle any “internal disturbances” on their own. But he said that U.S. officials had not yet determined whether to try to disarm thousands of army auxiliaries, blamed for much of Haiti’s recent bloody terror.

About 3,000 soldiers from the U.S. Army’s 10th Mountain Division had arrived by Monday night, deploying to secure the ports and key roads and to protect the U.S. Embassy.

Their rules of engagement allow them to use appropriate firepower to defend themselves, but they were under orders not to undertake any offensive operations.

Aristide, closeted with supporters in his Washington apartment, was silent on the agreement that is to return him to power by Oct. 15. But his supporters criticized it as unenforceable and a cave-in to the dictators.

Those around Aristide said that allowing Cedras--who violently overthrew Aristide in September, 1991--to remain in Haiti undercuts the whole arrangement.

A senior Administration official sympathetic to Aristide acknowledged that “this is a difficult moment for him.” He said it would be weeks before anyone can say with confidence whether the deal negotiated by the Carter mission will work.

Clinton said of Aristide, “He will have to determine for himself what he thinks about it, but it won’t be very long before he’ll have the opportunity to be back in Haiti governing as president, and it won’t be very long before we’ll have new parliamentary elections which I think everyone on all sides in Haiti believes is a very important thing.”

Powell, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the first day had gone well on the ground in Haiti, but warned, “There will be difficult times ahead. There may well be injuries and casualties. We can’t guarantee anything, but we’re off to an exceptionally good start.”

Powell said that the last-minute arrangement reached Sunday night had averted considerable bloodshed on both sides while preserving the dignity of Haiti’s military leaders.

“The image that we were all afraid we would see sometime this week has been avoided,” Powell said, as Clinton, Carter and Nunn looked on in the East Room. “And that image was of American youngsters killing Haitian youngsters and Haitian youngsters killing American youngsters. Instead, what we see on our television screens this morning are tentative beginnings of the new relationship, where these armed forces are talking to one another.

“We have not had to do something which may have contaminated the relationship between the two countries for years, decades to come,” Powell said.

But if disaster had been dodged, considerable problems remain. Within the next two weeks, 15,000 U.S. troops will descend on Haiti in an effort to pacify the country and keep Cedras and Aristide supporters from each other’s throats.

That sort of peacemaking in Somalia resulted in dozens of American deaths and a hasty and undignified exit.

After the American force is in place, the first troops of a 2,000-member multinational peacekeeping contingent will arrive to begin training Haitian military and police in the basics of non-lethal security methods and the principles of civilian control.

During this time, the Haitian Parliament, a fractured and powerless body, is to agree on terms of an amnesty for members of the junta. But no one in Washington is confident that that body--40 of whose members are in exile in Miami--will convene and resolve the emotional issue of forgiveness for a three-year period of bloodletting.

But Clinton Administration officials insist that Washington has no intention of trying to graft democratic institutions onto Haitian society.

“We made it clear to them that they’ve got to work it out themselves,” said one senior Administration official familiar with the weekend negotiations in Port-au-Prince. “One of the things we’re not going to get into is nation-building or the creation of institutions. We’ll give them some advice, some breathing space--but that’s it.”

Questions were raised also about whether acting Haitian President Emile Jonassaint has the authority to enforce terms of the agreement he signed with Carter on Sunday night. At least until last weekend, the United States did not recognize the 81-year-old Jonassaint’s legitimacy and had never had any dealings with him.

Carter said that, although he had spoken with the acting president, he assumed he was a mere figurehead for the dictatorship. But the generals deferred to Jonassaint and it was Jonassaint who guaranteed the terms of the seven-point Carter deal.

Asked whether Jonassaint has any power to carry out the agreement, a senior U.S. official said, “That’s irrelevant. With 15,000 U.S. troops on the ground, we don’t need anyone to guarantee the deal.”

But that leaves open the possibility that, for the time being at least, the American military--and only the American military--will be charged with monitoring a transfer of power in a place with scant tradition of peaceful transitions.

Nunn said that the high-stakes weekend mission had kept the United States and Haiti out of war, but that the crisis is not yet over.

Broder reported from Washington and Freed from Port-au-Prince.