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CRISIS IN THE CARIBBEAN : In Policy Change, U.S. Troops in Effect to Supervise Haitian Police : Military: Reversal follows TV footage of American forces watching as man is beaten to death in island nation’s capital.

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TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Clinton Administration, scrambling to avoid further embarrassing incidents of violence in Haiti, announced Wednesday that U.S. military police in effect will supervise Haitian police and intervene if necessary to stop abuses.

In an abrupt turnabout, the Pentagon said that more than 1,000 American MPs newly landed on the island will be deployed to accompany Haitian police at “every level” of operations, with the power to call in U.S. forces, if needed, to prevent excessive use of force.

Pentagon officials said Gen. John M. Shalikashvili, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also had assured Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide that American forces ultimately will ensure that Haiti’s civilian militia is fully disarmed and disbanded.

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The policy change came after the Administration was sharply criticized for incidents Tuesday in which American combat troops were forced to stand by while club-wielding Haitian police waded into throngs of people, beating at least one man to death.

Military officials insisted then that, under the agreement worked out by a delegation led by former President Jimmy Carter, American forces would be required to leave day-to-day police functions in the hands of the Haitian military and could not intervene to stop such excesses.

But Wednesday, after footage of the beatings by the Haitian police was broadcast by U.S. television networks, the Administration announced that it would begin cracking down on the situation, despite what officials had said the previous day.

Defense Secretary William J. Perry said U.S. military police “will have the specific function of overseeing and monitoring the functioning of the Haiti police force to ensure that they do not use unreasonable restraint in trying to deal with crowd control problems.”

He also noted pointedly that the MPs will be able to call in a new rapid-deployment force, equipped with Bradley fighting vehicles, if any situation gets out of hand. “We deplore the abhorrent acts of violence that took place yesterday,” Perry told Aristide.

U.S. officials said there were no deaths or injuries from beatings in Haiti on Wednesday.

The United States also told Lt. Gen. Raoul Cedras, the Haitian strongman, that excessive violence by Haitian police would be unacceptable to the Administration and that police must stop beating and shooting ordinary citizens.

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Officials said U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Hugh Shelton, the American commander in Haiti, personally warned Cedras on the issue in a special meeting in Port-au-Prince on Wednesday. They said Cedras agreed to order the Haitian police to alter their tactics.

Administration spokesmen insisted the new measures did not signal any change in rules of engagement for U.S. forces but merely “accelerated” by a few days previous plans to deploy American MPs on the island.

They also portrayed this use of American MPs as a temporary move, designed to keep Haitian police in check until peacekeeping duties are handed over to a multinational U.N. force--probably as early as next week, according to some officials.

But U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jared Bates, deputy operations director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, conceded that, under the new policy, U.S. soldiers who witnessed a severe beating of a Haitian civilian “would intervene.”

Senior Pentagon officials conceded that the situation remains fraught with risk, particularly if U.S. MPs end up clashing with Haitian police, embroiling American forces in the civil strife that has existed since Aristide was forced out.

Military planners have said repeatedly that they want to avoid the “mission creep” that overtook American forces in Somalia, when orders that U.S. forces hunt down Somali clan leader Mohammed Farah Aidid ended in a disastrous firefight that killed 18 U.S. Rangers.

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A senior military officer who briefed reporters Wednesday skirted a question about whether the new use of U.S. MPs amounts to “mission creep,” while other officials expressed concern that the move might bring new risks.

U.S. officials declined to elaborate on Shalikashvili’s assurances to Aristide that American forces will ensure that Haiti’s civilian militia ultimately is disarmed and disbanded, but that too amounted to a change from earlier policy. Officials had indicated that Washington would try to persuade the Haitian military to do the job, rather than having U.S. forces carry out the disarming of the civilian militia.

Also undecided was how far U.S. commanders might go in prohibiting public demonstrations in Haiti--another move being considered to help reduce violence by minimizing the chance for confrontations between Aristide supporters and Haitian police.

Officials said that, in his meeting with Perry and Shalikashvili, Aristide argued that his supporters ought to be permitted to hold political demonstrations. They said Shalikashvili agreed to consider the request but made no definite commitment.

Military officials insisted Wednesday that using MPs to supervise Haitian troops will not flout the Pentagon’s previous rule against involving American soldiers in police work because MPs are trained in police techniques while regular combat troops are not.

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