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Haiti's president urgently appealed for the world's help Tuesday to avert a bloodbath and a new exodus of boat people as rebels threatened the capital. Despite last-ditch diplomacy, an opposition coalition rejected a US-backed peace plan.
Supporters of Haiti'sPresident Jean-Bertrand Aristide armed with old rifles and pistols built junkpile barricades blocking the road into Port-au-Prince, setting some of the barriers ablaze with burning tires.
The opposition rejected a peace plan that would have kept Aristide as president, but with diminished powers and compelled to share government with his rivals.
"We sent our position (paper) and a signed letter saying no to the proposal," opposition leader Paul Denis told The Associated Press. He said the letters from the Democratic Platform were delivered to David Lee of Canada, the Organization of American States representative in Haiti.
"There will be no more delays. Our answer remains the same. Aristide must resign," said Maurice Lafortune, president of the Haitian Chamber of Commerce that is a member of the Democratic Platform, following a coalition meeting.
After meeting all day Tuesday, the opposition coalition said it would officially announce its decision at a news conference Wednesday morning.
The State Department said it did not accept as final the opposition's rejection, according to a US official who refused to be named. The United States "is still talking and working with the parties in Haiti to gain acceptance of the plan," the official said.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell on Tuesday conferred with Secretary of State Colin Powell conferred with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and expressed support for the French effort to reach a political solution, the official said.
On Monday, Powell had asked the opposition leaders to delay their formal response for 24 hours - until 5 pm Tuesday - and they said he had sought to assure them that the international community would call for Aristide to step down if he did not honor any agreement.
The neighboring Dominican Republic sent 1,500 extra troops to patrol its border with Haiti, said military spokesman Col. Juan Julio Tejeda Madera. He said that brought to 3,000 the number of troops at the 225-mile border. He said that he didn't expect a mass influx of refugees, "but we are ready."
At a news conference, Aristide warned that if rebels try to take the capital, the death toll would be high. So far, at least 70 people have been killed in the three-week uprising.
"Should those killers come to Port-au-Prince, you may have thousands of people who may be killed," Aristide said, adding the rebels had taken their fight overnight to the northwest town of Port-de-Paix. "We need the presence of the international community as soon as possible."
Aristide's followers have become more aggressive and have armed themselves since Haiti's small and demoralized police force fled the rebel advance. The insurgents have torched more than 20 police stations across northern Haiti since the uprising erupted Feb. 5.
At the National Palace, where Aristide made his pleas in French, English, Spanish and Creole, only a few police officers were visible. But an official said there were about 100 guarding the presidential seat.
Aristide said he was not calling for a military intervention, but rather for more assistance in training and equipping Haiti's police under an existing OAS agreement. Previous requests have been ignored as countries, including the United States, accuse Aristide of politicizing the police force, ignoring corruption among officers and using the police and armed militants to crush dissent. Aristide denied those charges.
On Tuesday, he said rebels had attacked Port-de-Paix. "The criminals and terrorists went to the north, to Port-de-Paix, and burned private and public buses, killing people," he said.
Independent Radio Metropole said a disgruntled street gang had attacked the town, and the police fled.
The insurrection has bred chaos in Haiti, where more than half the country and half of the 8 million people are beyond the reach of central government authority. The uprising was begun by one of the street gangs that says it was armed by Aristide to terrorize his opponents in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city.
ActionAid agency warned of looming hunger and health crisis. It said only a private hospital is operating in Port-au-Prince, and that food prices in the capital are rising.
Police sources in Port-au-Prince said Aristide adviser Jean-Claude Jean-Baptiste fled the country Monday. Jean-Baptiste, said to be the liaison between Aristide and armed gangs, went to the Dominican Republic, the sources said. A diplomat there said he was in Cuba.
Villepin is to meet this week in Paris with representatives of the Haitian government and the opposition to try to resolve the crisis.
Western diplomats in Port-au-Prince confirmed Tuesday that Aristide had asked France for a military intervention last week, though Aristide denies this.
French President Jacques Chirac said his country is ready to consider contributing to any eventual peacekeeping force in its former colony, but only one approved by the United Nations.
"For the time being what we are working on is a police force, or a civilian force," said France's U.N. ambassador, Jean-Marc de La Sabliere.
Britain and Australia on Tuesday urged their citizens to get out of Haiti, following warnings to leave from the United States, France and Mexico. There are about 30,000 foreigners in Haiti, 20,000 of them Americans.
The United States sent 50 combat-ready Marines to Port-au-Prince on Monday to protect the US Embassy and staff.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said U.S. planes were patrolling Haitian shores to guard against any possible surge in boat people. "We continue to carefully monitor that situation, but we've not seen any indication to indicate a surge in migration at this point," he said, making clear any migrants caught would be returned home.
Aristide urged Haitians to come to Port-au-Prince.
"Unfortunately many brothers and sisters ... will take to the sea, they will become boat people," he said.
Most boat people want to go to the United States and many are picked by the US Coast Guard and returned home. Others land in the Bahamas and Cuba. On Monday, 32 Haitian boat people landed in Jamaica, bringing to 62 the number who have arrived there in the past 10 days.
Jamaica has not seen numbers like that since the flood of boat people that fled a brutal military dictatorship in Haiti from 1991-1994. Then, tens of thousands of refugees reached Florida.
In 1994, Washington sent 20,000 troops in 1994 to end the dictatorship, restore Aristide to power and halt the exodus to Florida. But the Bush administration has made clear it has no appetite for another large-scale military adventure in Haiti.
(China Daily February 25, 2004)
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