Haitians Brace for Rebel Attack on Capital

Police abandoned their posts and pro-government gangs fortified their roadblocks Wednesday as fearful Haitians braced for an attack on this capital by armed rebels who have vowed to topple President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Thugs loyal to Aristide looted businesses in the wealthy suburb of Petionville, and gas stations ran out of diesel fuel amid panic buying by motorists preparing to flee to the Dominican Republic. Foreign airlines suspended flights, and residents took shelter in their homes.

As order deteriorated, France officially placed blame on Aristide for the spreading violence and anarchy in its former colony and hinted that he should consider stepping down.

“As far as President Aristide is concerned, he bears grave responsibility for the current situation,” French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin said in Paris. “It’s his decision. It’s his responsibility. Everyone sees that this is about opening a new page in the history of Haiti.”

There was no immediate response from Aristide. Western diplomats have been struggling for days to arrange a settlement to the crisis, but Haitian opposition groups have rejected any power-sharing proposal that would allow Aristide to stay on as president.

As negotiations continued Wednesday, France called for the immediate establishment of a civilian security force that would be charged with “assuring the restoration of public order” once a new government was in place. President Bush said the U.S. might also participate, but not without a political solution first. The U.N. Security Council is to meet today to consider an appeal by Jamaica to deploy a peacekeeping force, but details of the proposal were unclear.

In Cap Haitien, the country’s second-largest city, which fell to rebels Sunday, militant leader Guy Philippe told Associated Press that his forces had grown from a couple of hundred to nearly 5,000 and were ready to attack the capital if Aristide’s gangs continued to sow fear and violence. But Philippe, a former officer in the Haitian army that deposed Aristide in a 1991 coup, said he was holding off to give Aristide a chance to resign and avert bloodshed.

Evacuees Robbed

Members of pro-Aristide gangs erected checkpoints near Port-au-Prince’s airport early in the day, halting cars evacuating missionaries and foreign relief workers and stealing their luggage and communications equipment. Other gunmen forced drivers to pay to pass through their barricades, prompting the United Nations offices here to suspend their employees’ departure until conditions were more secure. Vehicles at two car dealerships near the airport were smashed.

Crude barricades of stones, tires, mangled car chassis and flaming debris went up across the city, and streets normally thronged with traffic and people hawking goods were nearly deserted. At an open-air market by a bridge over the Grise River, Dieumene Jean lamented that nobody had shown up to buy the papayas she had been displaying for 10 hours.

“Things are very bad. I’ve been here since 6 in the morning and I haven’t sold anything,” the 33-year-old mother of five said. “The streets aren’t safe. No one is going out.”

As dusk fell, more than 100 men massed outside the whitewashed walls of the National Palace, vowing to protect Aristide with their bare hands if necessary.

“We are mobilized, we are going to spend the night here, we are ready to die with Aristide,” said Pierre Losaac, 39, who tugged up a pant leg to show a bullet wound he said he received in the 1991 coup.

The government, however, seemed beset by disorder. The capital’s main police compound was virtually empty when reporters arrived for a news conference called by the government early in the day. After three postponements and changes of venue, it was never held. In other cities, police have fled their offices ahead of rebel advances, refusing to fire on fellow Haitians to defend Aristide’s regime.

Opposition forces, meanwhile, reiterated their refusal to accept any power-sharing arrangement with Aristide, rebuffing efforts by diplomats from the United States, Canada, France, the Caribbean Community and the Organization of American States.

“It is absolutely necessary for the international community to accompany the country in its quest for a mechanism that will allow for a timely and orderly departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide,” the Democratic Platform, an opposition coalition that represents more than 300 political parties, movements, unions and social groups, said in a statement.

The opposition forces insist the Haitian public will not accept any solution that includes Aristide, whom they blame for instigating the current violence by arming supporters and using them to brutalize political rivals and independent journalists.

At least 70 people have died since the rebels seized the city of Gonaives on Feb. 5, inspiring a chain of regional revolts by bands of disgruntled Haitians and armed gangs once loyal to Aristide. The mainstream political opposition has distanced itself from the rebels, and it is unclear whether it has any sway over the armed insurgents.

Washington and other Western capitals had been insisting that Aristide was the elected president and necessary in any future government to ensure constitutional order. But a change of tone has been discernible in official statements since Sunday’s fall of Cap Haitien -- to a mere 200 rebels -- underscored widespread unwillingness to defend Aristide’s government.

Haiti has no army; Aristide abolished it in 1995 after he was returned to power by a 20,000-strong U.S. military invasion that sent most of those involved in the 1991 coup into exile. Philippe is one of an untold number of former military and death squad leaders to return to Haiti to help organize and direct the 3-week-old rebellion.

On Tuesday, Aristide urged the international community to send security forces to halt the armed insurrection and stave off what he predicted could be an exodus of boat people. Bush warned Wednesday that any refugees arriving on U.S. shores would be repatriated.

“I have made it abundantly clear to the Coast Guard that we will turn back any refugee that attempts to reach our shore, and that message needs to be very clear as well to the Haitian people,” Bush said. “We will have a robust presence with an effective strategy, and so we encourage, strongly encourage, the Haitian people to stay home as we work to reach a peaceful solution to this problem.”

Although tens of thousands of Haitians fled to the U.S. after the 1991 coup, there has been little indication they are preparing to do so this time. A Panamanian-registered freighter intercepted by the Coast Guard near Miami on Wednesday was found to be carrying 22 Haitian refugees who had commandeered the ship three days earlier, but that incident and a few others in recent days represent minuscule numbers compared with the earlier wave of migrants.

Bush reiterated that he might be willing to contribute to an international security force to police a negotiated plan for rebuilding political institutions in Haiti, which has no functioning parliament or government services. But he said the deployment would be “incident to the political settlement.”

Open to Dialogue

Haiti’s mainstream political opposition groups said they were still open to dialogue with the Western nations, despite their rejection of the power-sharing plan presented here Saturday.

“We want the Haitian people to know we do not have a problem with the international community,” said Evans Paul, a leader of the Democratic Platform. The organization has made a counterproposal that embraces the timetable and procedures outlined by the diplomats -- but only after Aristide’s departure from office.

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Ruler roulette

Haiti had more than 30 rulers and two military juntas between its independence in 1804 and 1957. Of those, just six served full terms -- four of them during an American occupation. Since then, 11 individuals have run the country:

Rulers since 1957

‘57-’71: Francois Duvalier (Died in office)

‘71-’86: Jean-Claude Duvalier(Fled to France)

‘86-’88: Henri Namphy

‘88: Leslie Manigat (Overthrown)

‘88: Henri Namphy(Overthrown)

‘88-’90: Prosper Avril (Overthrown)

‘90-’91: Ertha Pascal-Trouillot

‘91: Jean-Bertrand Aristide (Overthrown)

‘91-’92: Joseph Nerette (Resigned)

‘92-’93: Marc Bazin (Resigned)

‘94: Emile Jonassaint (Resigned)

‘94-’96: Jean-Bertrand Aristide*

‘96-’00: Rene Preval

‘00-present: Jean-Bertrand Aristide

* Reinstatement from 1991 ouster

Sources: Associated Press, Florida Sun-Sentinel, Professor Jana Braziel, www.webster.edu

Times staff writers John-Thor Dahlburg in Port-au-Prince, Maggie Farley at the United Nations and Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.